Investing.com – Bitcoin edged lower on Wednesday after struggling to hold above $9,000 as traders awaited further catalysts to determine direction.
Bitcoin fell 1.56% to $8,856.9 on the Bitfinex exchange after hitting an intraday high of $9,170.0.
Bitcoin remained on course to suffer a second-straight daily loss for the first time in more than a week.
Some pointed to the prospect of large sell order of bitcoins from defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt Gox as a reason for the subdued sentiment.
Mt Gox moved 16,000 bitcoins from its vaults to an unknown address, according to The Next Web, leading many to speculate the former crypto exchange will offload the coins, triggering a wave of sell orders, pressuring bitcoin.
Mt Gox was said to have previously offloaded around $500 million worth of bitcoin.
Others, however, cited a technical reason for the weakness in bitcoin, suggesting the popular crypto’s move close to $10,000 on Tuesday triggered technical resistance – trading levels that attract sellers.
Still, crypto demand remained steady as the total market cap of cryptocurrencies rose to about $398 billion, at the time of writing, from about $397 billion on Wednesday.
Ripple XRP rose 0.31% to $0.81741 on the Poloniex exchange, while Ethereum fell 0.26% to $630.07.
Bitcoin Cash fell 0.01% to $1,327.40, while Litecoin fell 0.01% to $146.88.