Bitcoin Today: BitMex sneaky shutdown

Price
Bitcoin price jumped by as much as 7% almost instantly at around 1:00 UTC today. Many connect the movement to BitMex shutdown, as it was giving a huge arbitrage opportunity to traders. Nonetheless, the movement led the price out from the 6250 – 6600 channel. 6900 level appeared to strong and stopped the growth, eventually pushing the price down to the 6600 level, which transformed into a support after the breakthrough. For now, traders are digesting the news about BitMex, which eventually could lead to the conclusions that there are no reasons to buy now and send the price back in 6250 – 6600 zones. And don’t forget that everyone is waiting for SEC decision on ProShares Bitcoin ETF, which will be the major driver.

Today forecast
Trading in the 6600 – 6900 zone. Possible comeback to the 6250.

Latest news

BitMex shutdown was a wild trading opportunity
Yesterday Bitcoin price jumped, breaking above 6600 level and almost reaching 7000 high. The move coincided with scheduled maintenance on BitMEX, a derivatives trading platform for bitcoin and other cryptos. And insiders say the move precipitated some wild trading.
The platform went down at 1 a.m. UTC today — which was the exact moment that Bitcoin spiked. Prices peaked at 6899 before easing back to the 6600.
Industry insiders indicated the spike appeared to be directly related to the BitMEX shutdown. Hunter Horsely, the CEO of Bitwise, told Business Insider that the shutdown sparked a widespread trade to buy.
"It is a silly short term trade," he said. "Buy when maintenance starts. Sell when ends."
In addition, as soon as BitMEX went down a big arbitrage opportunity opened up for traders, according to Dave Weisberger, chief executive officer of CoinRoutes.
"Bitfinex led it up to 6800+, but when GDAX caught up, their clients were paying over $100 too much when the other exchanges all fell back to 6700," he said. "There was a real arbitrage for a while when this all happened."
Such price variations were common at the end of 2017 during the major rally towards 20000, but have since dried up. In such situations, a trader can buy up coins where they are priced lower to sell on venues on which they are priced higher.
In three hours after shutdown BitMex announced the completion of work, but stated the difficulties with access to the site, confirming that the reason is a large DDos-attack, which is why many users had difficulties with logging into accounts.