Thursday, Sept. 19 — Bitcoin (BTC) prices are back up and seem to be stabilizing just above the $10,200 price mark after experiencing a sudden drop of $500 in minutes.

Market visualization. Source: Coin360

Bitcoin is trading sideways again

Bitcoin’s sideways trading behavior has become standard operating procedure in recent months, with long periods of sideways action giving way to sudden drops in prices, only to shoot back up to previous levels.

BTC has started to trade sideways once again, currently at around $10,290 per coin, according to data from Coin360.

Bitcoin 24-hour price chart. Source: Coin36

Some have tried to explain why BTC/USD began gaining and losing several hundred dollars within minutes at irregular intervals. One theory revolved around margin trading — an increasingly popular tool offered by major exchanges such as Binance and BitMEX.

Twitter account Squeeze noted: “The effect of cascading margin calls and stop loss triggers causing $300 slippage between XBT perpetual swaps on Bitmex vs Spot BTC.”

Ether (ETH) is continuing its bullish move to just above the $220 price mark. The most popular altcoin is currently trading at $221.39, showing impressive gains of more than 5% on the day.

Ether 24-hour price chart. Source: Coin360

After weeks of sideways trading, Ripple’s XRP token took the lead in the top 20 altcoins with impressive gains just a few days ago. XRP was able to hold on to most of its gains and is currently trading at $0.30, although it is showing a loss of almost 1% on the day.

XRP seven-day price chart. Source: Coin360

Top-20 altcoins mostly in the red

Most major altcoins are seeing red today, with the exception of Ether.

The biggest top 20 losers of the day are Monero (XMR) and NEO, with both coins showing losses close to 3%. Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Bitcoin SV (BSV) aren’t faring much better, with losses of about 2% each.

The overall cryptocurrency market cap sits at $272.9 billion, with Bitcoin making up 67.6% of the total.