Bitcoin's Price Swings to Nearly $6,500 in Volatile Trading Hour

Bitcoin's volatility was on full display on Wednesday when its price fell from $6,300 to $6,100 before shooting up to $6,500 – all within an hour's time.

As of press time, the world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was trading at $6,422, up 5 percent from the day's low of $6,117. The market did not waste time making its bullish move, scaling over 6 percent in less than 20 minutes to ultimately hit a high of $6,494, according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index (BPI).

Coincidentally, the move occurred within just minutes of a CBOE Bitcoin Futures expiration. Bitcoin futures expirations have been documented as having a turbulent effect on the price of the underlying cryptocurrency, so an increase in market volatility perhaps could have been foreseen.

Bitcoin's move today is more shocking than its usual volatility, as an important technical level of price support of $6,200 was breached, signaling bears were primed to drive prices lower. Evidently, that turned out not to be the case since it is clear demand still exists above the $6,000 mark.

CoinMarketCap data shows that the total market capitalization for the cryptocurrency market rose to roughly $201 billion during the market uptick, up roughly 4 percent and $8 billion from Wednesday's low.

At the time of writing, the 24-hour growth for other well-known cryptocurrencies is not quite as dramatic, although seven of the ten biggest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization have seen positive price developments. Cardano (ADA) is leading the pack, currently printing a six percent appreciation compared to Tuesday's figures.

Disclosure: The author holds BTC, AST, REQ, OMG, FUEL, 1st and AMP at the time of writing.

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