Bitcoin volatility is back to levels not seen since early November, with the bulls and bears sparring at the US$10 000 price level.

Historical swings over the past 10 days on the bitcoin-US dollar pair surged to 65% on Wednesday, the highest level since 6 November, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Bitcoin plunged late in yesterday’s session, going from being little-changed at $10 168 to a drop of more than 8% to $9 327 about 45 minutes later. It recovered somewhat after that, and traded on Thursday at $9 537 as of 8.25am in New York.

“It could be a technical move with highly leveraged derivatives positions getting called,” said Emmanuel Goh, who runs crypto-derivatives tracker Skew. He noted that some long perpetual swap positions got liquidated on Bitmex around the time of Wednesday’s drop.

Cryptocurrencies are known for their volatility, and the largest of them has continued to live up to that reputation. Bitcoin is still up more than 30% to start 2020, which some market players attribute to a search by investors for alternative asset classes amid concerns about the coronavirus outbreak. — Reported by Joanna Ossinger, with assistance from Dave Liedtka and Olga Kharif, (c) 2020 Bloomberg LP