Bitcoin traded lower Wednesday, on track for a third consecutive losing session.
In midmorning trade, a single bitcoin BTCUSD, -1.35% was fetching $6,261.36, down 1.1% since Tuesday at 5 p.m. Eastern Time on the Kraken crypto exchange. Earlier in the session, bitcoin traded to $6,211.84, marking its lowest level since Oct. 15.
Despite gravitating away from the $6,500 level, one crypto trader said the extended period of low volatility is showing no signs of abating. “Bitcoin is not only going through low volatility, but also very low volume,” wrote Ricky Li, co-founder of Altonomy, a cryptocurrency trading and asset management firm.
“It’s at the lowest trading volume in 2018, especially the spot market. This signals a very low retail participation. So without enough external funding or retail participation, the market is probably going to stay around the current price with low volatility and volume in the near future.”
Read: A central bank digital currency could be around the corner, if you believe the IMF
Bitcoin Cash leads altcoin selloff
Altcoins, or cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin, were in the red Wednesday. Ether, ETHUSD, -2.71% was off 2.1% at $199.20, Bitcoin Cash BCHUSD, -6.92% was the worst-performing major altcoin, trading down 6.9% to $476.10, Litecoin LTCUSD, -1.61% had lost 0.8% at $48.55 and XRP, XRPUSD, -2.86% the coin that runs on the Ripple protocol, was off 2.3% at 49 cents.
Futures were continuing their poor run Wednesday. The Cboe Global Markets November contract XBTX8, -1.24% was 1.2% lower at $6,195 and the CME Group November contract BTCX8, -1.59% was down 1.7% at $6,180.
Read: What you need to know about the Bitcoin Cash ‘hard fork’
Providing critical information for the U.S. trading day. Subscribe to MarketWatch’s free Need to Know newsletter. Sign up here.