The price of bitcoin is off to a slow start on Friday.

As measured by CoinDesk data, bitcoin's near 6 percent drop in the last six hours places the cryptocurrency among the worst performers in the day's afternoon session (6:00 to 12:00 UTC). During the window, bitcoin fell briefly below $15,000, in a move that took it off a torrid pace that had seen it rise to a new all-time high above $17,000 on Thursday.

At press time, the value of its network is just over $250 billion.

Still, it seems action moved elsewhere in the market, with lesser-known alternative cryptos TRON, EOS, Waltoncoin and Veritsaseum all seeing more than 10 percent gains during the six-hour span.

It's notable, however, that the data also suggests choppy activity in the markets today.

The day's morning trading session (0:00 to 6:00 UTC), for example, saw an entirely different set of cryptocurrencies emerge as the top performers among the 60 largest coins.

After taking an early lead on the day as the session's top performers, populous, bitcoin cash and Ripple's XRP token, all fell back during the afternoon session, data shows.

On a 24-hour span, the charts look different as well, with bitcoin up nearly 2 percent on the day, and IOTA emerging as the best-performing cryptocurrency with a more than 20 percent gain.

Cryptocurrency Market Snapshot (Morning Session: 06:01~12:00 UTC)

Top 5 Performers

TRON: $0.0, 15.34%

EOS: $4.45, 14.09%

Walton: $8.44, 12.4%

Veritaseum: $161.93, 12.34%

Santiment Network Token: $2.95; 10.93%

Bottom 5 Performers

Decred: $49.23; -7.53%

BitConnect: $382.94; -6.09%

Bitcoin: $15455.6; -5.9%

Cryptonex: $4.09; -5.06%

BitcoinDark: $128; -4.62%

Choppy water image via Shutterstock