Bitcoin price: cryptocurrency set to rise after hitting new 2018 low?

Bitcoin values are slowly beginning to edge up after the cryptocurrency hit its lowest point of the year last week.

The virtual currency dropped to around $3,280 (£2,580) on Friday evening, before creeping up to around $3,550 (£2,790) per coin as of 9am GMT today, according to ranking site CoinMarketCap.

The recent sell-offs of the cryptocurrency - and the “epic plunge” in its value, as CNN puts it - have been attributed in part to a warning from US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) commissioner Hester Peirce that she is struggling to convince other members of the agency to approve more bitcoin exchange traded funds.

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News of a “hard fork” - where a digital coin splits to form a new cryptocurrency - in the bitcoin network last month has also contributed to the massive price drops, which have seen the virtual token sinking by more than 80% from its $20,000 (£15,720) high recorded last December, notes Forbes.

However, the downward trend could be coming to an end, according to cryptocurrency news site NewsBTC, which says that the market may slowly rebound if values can move past the $3,700 (£2,900) mark.

Some bitcoin experts have remained bullish about the virtual currency’s future.

Last week Danny Scott, co-founder of British-based bitcoin exchange CoinCorner, told the Daily Express: “if we look back over Bitcoin’s short ten-year history, it has experienced many price fluctuations - something that is to be expected given that the industry is still very young.

“It’s widely known that Bitcoin has allegedly “died” more than 300 times to date.”