Investing.com — Bitcoin price fell on Thursday, extending a decline seen this week, as a broader risk-averse sentiment kept traders cautious on cryptocurrencies, while continued speculation over the U.S. presidential election also weighed.
The world’s No. 2 token, Ether, also posted prolonged losses as traders largely overlooked the launch of spot exchange-traded funds in U.S. markets this week. The launch attracted a fraction of the capital flows compared to those seen by spot Bitcoin ETFs earlier this year.
Risk sentiment was hit by a sharp drop in Wall Street indices on Wednesday as investors sold off major technology stocks in droves following a pair of disappointing second-quarter earnings.
fell 2.4% over the past 24 hours to $64,265.0 as of 01:48 ET (05:48 GMT).
Bitcoin is affected by political speculation and risk aversion
Bitcoin, and by extension the broader cryptocurrency markets, were also hit by uncertainty over the US presidential race, especially after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic front-runner.
Harris is believed to have polled better than Biden against Republican candidate Donald Trump, and also garnered broad support from the Democratic Party.
Given Harris’ past as a public prosecutor (who had cracked down on for-profit banks and universities), it seemed likely that she would continue Biden’s agenda of stricter financial regulations in the country, which bodes ill for cryptocurrencies.
Media outlets reported that Harris had reportedly turned down an invitation to speak at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville. This sparked the ire of several cryptocurrency advocates.
Initial speculation about a Trump presidency had helped cryptocurrency markets, especially considering that the Republican candidate has maintained a largely pro-crypto stance.
Trump is scheduled to speak at the Bitcoin Conference on Saturday.
Bitcoin reels from Mt Gox token moves
Sentiment towards Bitcoin was also further undermined by reports showing that defunct exchange Mt Gox had moved more tokens to exchanges, likely preparing for further distributions.
Mt Gox has been a major pain point for the price of Bitcoin, as the defunct exchange began returning tokens stolen during a hack in 2014. Traders speculated that recipients of the tokens would be largely inclined to sell them, given Bitcoin’s massive price gains over the past decade.
Cryptocurrency prices today: Ether falls amid a small cheer from ETFs, altcoins sink
Among broader cryptocurrency prices, the world's No. 2 token fell 7.7% to $3,117.61 on Thursday.
The token did not receive much support from the launch of spot ETFs on US markets earlier this week, which did see solid trading volumes of over $1 billion on their debut. But these volumes were much lower than the $4 billion recorded by Bitcoin ETFs, indicating relatively lower investor appetite.
Other altcoins also made little progress. They rose slightly, while and fell by 2% and 3.2%, respectively.
Among memetokens, it fell 5.3%, while it lost 4.8%.
