Crypto markets continued a second day of slide on Friday as bitcoin hovered above pivotal support at $40,000 in European hours, data show.
Bitcoin (BTC) bounced to $40,100 early Friday, after losing 2.9% Thursday.
Bitcoin is trading near the $40,000 support level, which runs through the lows of the first three months of the year. Current price action is, however, a sign of alarm among some traders.
Elsewhere in cryptocurrency markets, the Crypto Fear and Greed Index, a popular sentiment indicator that's hosted on the website Alternative.me, suggested "extreme fear" among crypto investors on Friday, with a reading at 22. That's down from last week's "fear" reading of 37.
But XRP and dogecoin (DOGE) were higher.
XRP
XRP's rise came amid positive sentiment for the payments tokens as Ripple founder Brad Garlinghouse said Thursday its ongoing defense against a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was going "much better than expected."
Ripple, which uses XRP in its payments protocol, disputes the SEC's contention that the XRP token was issued and sold as an unregistered security to U.S. investors.
DOGE
DOGE's rise came as Tesla CEO Elon Musk offered to take over the entirety of the popular social media platform Twitter. Musk holds a 9.2% stake and has offered to take Twitter private at a valuation of $54.20 per share.
Some analysts speculate that Musk, who has publicly backed dogecoin's growth and development, could integrate the token in some capacity on Twitter.
"The speculation is that advertisers could be able to pay DOGE for ads and for other uses on Twitter," explained Kryptomon Chief Marketing Officer Tomer Nuni in a note to CoinDesk last week.
Read more: Bitcoin Regains $40K as Sentiment Turns to 'Extreme Fear'
Also: XRP, Dogecoin Outperform as Crypto Markets Continue Slide
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