Bitcoin's price quickly dropped below $16,000 Saturday morning, putting the rapid rally seen in recent weeks on pause.
- Around 10:00 UTC, the cryptocurrency dropped as low as $15,750, having hit highs over $16,300 in the Asian trading hours.
- As reported earlier this week, analysts had been expecting bitcoin to move into consolidation for a time, and possible to see a pullback.
- That's because the rally from $9,800 to over $16,000 over the past two months looked overstretched on the technical charts.
- They anticipated, however, that the run toward bitcoin's record high of around $20,000 would pick up the pace again, likely in December.
- The bitcoin options market is also extremely bullish longer term, as data showed Thursday that net demand for call options (bullish bets) was outstripping net demand for puts (bearish bets) by the highest level on record.
- At press time, bitcoin prices had risen slightly to $15,860, down 2.87% over 24 hours.