Bitcoin’s price has continued trading sideways and is slowly drifting towards the bottom of its long-established trading range. During Bitcoin’s long period of sideways trading, traders have turned to the altcoin markets in order to profit from higher levels of volatility.

Bitcoin Continues Ranging, Analysts Increasingly Unsure of Why/When it will Break Through the Range

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $6,370 on the aggregated markets, down marginally over a 24-hour period. Although Bitcoin is firmly within its long-established trading range between $6,200 and $6,700, it is quickly approaching the bottom of this range on most major USD trading pairs.

Currently, Bitcoin (BTC) is trading around $6,280 on multiple exchanges that offer a BTC/USD trading pair, including Bitstamp, GDAX, Coinbase, and Bittrex. On Bitmex, which is responsible for over 20% of BTC’s entire trading volume, it is trading at $6,281.

As discussed in previous market updates, Bitcoin has been caught in a seemingly unbreakable trading range since early September, where it fell from its three month highs of $7,400 to lows of $6,200. In the months since, $6,200 has acted as support on several occasions, and its price has yet to decisively break above $6,700, making this number a significant point of resistance.

Several months back, many analysts and investors alike expressed their beliefs that Bitcoin’s period of sideways trading would be short-lived, although now these same analysts are increasingly unsure of when, or why, BTC will exit this unprecedented trading range.

While speaking to MarketWatch, Craig Erlam, a senior market analyst at Oanda, expressed uncertainty as to what Bitcoin will do next.

“It’s hard to have a major thought on it as each day it’s a carbon copy of the last. If we see a breakout it could attract momentum, but we’ve been wondering when it will come for a while now.”

Erlam further added that periods of low volatility can be positive for the industry, as it allows projects to focus less on hype and price action, and more on developing solid projects.

Altcoins Trading Down Across the Board

As Bitcoin gradually drifts towards its historic support level of $6,200, most major altcoins are posting losses over a 24-hour trading period.

At the time of writing, Ethereum (ETH) is trading down nearly 1.5% at its current price of $207. Ripple (XRP) is trading down over 2% at its current price of $0.51. Stellar (XLM) is down 4% at its current price of $0.258.

Currently, the only major altcoin that is trading up is Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which is approaching the date of its hard fork event that is scheduled to occur on November 15th. BCH’s price action tomorrow will be particularly interesting, as it will likely signal to the industry how interested investors are in the resulting units of the BCH hard fork.

All the cryptocurrencies mentioned in this article are available to trade on covesting.io