Another Choppy Day on the Cards as Regulatory Chatter Weights

Relief rallies appear to be few and far between at the moment, with Bitcoin struggling to break free of the shackles that continue to hold it back on around the $11,000 level.

Thursday was lacked inspiration, with Bitcoin ending the day down 0.01% to $11,400.29, with a move through to an intraday high $11,741.8 doing little to inspire confidence, with Bitcoin Futures and government chatter doing little to help Bitcoin’s cause.

Bitcoin Futures slipped on Thursday on news hitting the wires that the SEC and CFTC will be looking to increase oversight, the moves likely to come in response to the South Korean government’s decision to impose certain conditions on exchanges and cryptocurrency traders.

The U.S cryptomarket is a sizeable one and the only reason why the markets didn’t go into meltdown was because of the more measured messaging, with the SEC and CFTC jointly highlighting that their primary concern revolved around protecting the interests of the investor.

It was a flat day for Bitcoin and considering the fact that Bitcoin ended the day just 2.91% off its intraday high, it won’t be considered too much of a loss for those in it for the long haul.

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It’s perhaps to be expected that moves through the early part of today have been relatively muted, with Bitcoin down 0.09% to $11,144.99 at the time of writing.

It had been looking relatively promising for the cryptomarkets through the early part of the morning, with the majority of the majors in positive territory.

Bitcoin has eased back from an intraday high $11,635 to begin testing support levels at this morning’s $11,088.44 low, with the Cboe’s Bitcoin futures February contract certainly a drag, down $200 to $11,100 at the time of writing.

The smart money is certainly not convinced of Bitcoin’s future under increased regulatory scrutiny and should futures prices begin to slide down to sub-$11,000 levels, cryptocurrency resilience could be tested going into the weekend.

For the rest of the day, there’s little to incentivise investors to jump in, which suggests another move sideways, which will be better than some of the other cryptocurrencies today, Ripple amongst the worst performers down 8.13% to $1.189 at the time of writing.

If regulators and governments are actually interested in the safety of investors and their investments, perhaps there should be a more coordinated guidance for the markets. Simply issuing statements of intent doesn’t give investors any idea of what ‘more stringent oversight’ actually entails.

The uncertainty is telling and until there is greater clarity on what lies ahead for the cryptomarkets in key jurisdictions, things are unlikely to change.

You know it’s a bad day when Stellar Lumen is in the red along with the rest of the pack, with Ethereum the only crypto bucking the trend at the time of writing, up 0.12% to $1,041.21.

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