Investing.com - Bitcoin turned negative on Thursday after its surge above $9,000 triggered a wave of selling, forcing the popular crypto to hit session lows.
Bitcoin fell 1.23% to $8,558 after hitting a high of $9,045.9.
The sharp reversal served as a stern reminder that the road to $10,000 for bitcoin will be fraught with headwinds as sellers continue to linger at key price levels.
Once the $10,000 mark has been breached, however, the floodgates will likely open, driving a wave of new funds into the market as traders, who were on the sidelines, scramble to get in on the rally, according to Tom Lee, global head analyst at Fundstrat.
But for the moment, traders are closely monitoring the $8,600 level, which some have earmarked as a technical support level, for signs of underlying demand.
Bitcoin's market cap, used to gauge appetite for the crypto, has risen from $60 billion in February to $152 billion in May, taking the total crypto market cap to $273 billion. Bitcoin's market cap is about the same size of Dow component McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD). The market cap of crypto currencies in total is about 28% the size of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), currently the most valuable U.S. stock.
Despite today's slump, bitcoin remains on course to post its fourth-straight month of gains, a period during which it has more than doubled its market cap.
Still, the intraday reversal was mirrored by other cryptos, with XRP/USD down 1.77% to $0.44134, ETH/USD down 1.56% to $268.46 and LTC/USD shedding 4.40% to $112.27.