Novogratz Warns Bitcoin’s Next Leg Lower Could Take it to $6,500

(Bloomberg) -- In the wake of Wednesday’s more than $600 plunge, Bitcoin maven Mike Novogratz warned that the digital currency’s next leg lower could take it all the way down to $6,500. That would represent a 13% drop from current levels.

“There’s been a bunch of negative things that have happened recently,” the chief executive officer of Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd. said in a television interview with CNBC on Thursday. He added that Bitcoin will “need new energy” to make a move back to the $8,000 range.

Bitcoin fell to a five-month low on Wednesday, dropping as much as 10%, as Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the House Financial Services Committee on the company’s efforts to launch a stablecoin. Lawmakers made it clear they were skeptical over the new digital currency and questioned whether the social media giant should be trusted with the power it has amassed with over nearly 3 billion global users.

Novogratz said the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission’s decision to stop plans from popular messaging app Telegram to launch and sell its own cryptocurrency has also weighed on sentiment. “That was a kick in the stomach to the overall crypto ecosystem.”

Technical signals paint a mixed picture for Bitcoin: The token’s Relative Strength Index -- which identifies general price trends -- shows it’s in oversold territory and suggests the price could rise if it stays above its 200-day moving average line. But a breach below it could drive it down to the $6,500 level.

Bitcoin was down for a third straight day on Thursday to trade around $7,478 as of 10:05 a.m. in New York.

Despite Bitcoin’s recent volatility, Novogratz said his company plans to soon launch a Bitcoin fund that would price and provide custody for the cryptocurrency. It would allow users to invest in Bitcoin without having to set up accounts elsewhere, he said in the interview.

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.