Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen sharply after breaking through its support level of $460 on BTC-e 24h ago.
The support level had long served as a stronghold of stability. It had not been broken, despite multiple attempts, since the August sell-off. Even during that time, BTC barely spend 24h below the threshold. Price instability prevailed, culminating in the flash crash followed by recovery to above $500.
Prior to that, BTC had not traded below $460 since before the May rally.
It is currently trading at $449 and earlier hit $442.50, a 4-month low. BTC had already shown bearish signals 48h ago while exhibiting abnormally flat behavior and failing to climb above $470 on numerous attempts, without exception.
24h ago, BTC made its first move: it broke through the $460 support level. Beyond this point, there is little support to be found in the $420-450 range, last visited for a lengthy stretch immediate prior to the May rally. Hence, after a brief retracement all the way back to $460, BTC sunk by as much as 4%.
BTC has thus been thrown off-pace from its 200-day moving average (MA) of $540, which had started to flatten during the past week. Now 17% off, the pattern bears resemblance with recent periods of decline. The MA offset is the biggest since during the August instability.
The spread between BTC-e and Bitstamp is back to within $7 (1.6%), the going rate during the past 6 months.
