Volatile Bitcoin Trade Should Be Warning To Bulls And Bears

The price of Bitcoin was volatile overnight - posting a 20% drop in the U.S. trading session just days after hitting a high of nearly $42,000.

It recovered slightly in Asia to around $32,000 Tuesday, according to online trade site Coinbase.

More big swings are ahead - and market participants shouldn't be surprised after a 300% gain for the cryptocurrency in the past year, according to foreign-exchange company Onanda Corp.'s senior market analyst Craig Erlam.

Bitcoin fell around $6,200 to $31,000 Monday in the U.S. in a drop that coincided with gains for the dollar. "It's a bump in the road," Erlam said. "This volatility is going nowhere and...should be a warning to anyone that thinks this only moves quickly in one direction. As the UK Financial Conduct Authority warned, with bitcoin you should be prepared to lose everything."

Other analysts said the digital currency's recent rises and falls only highlighted the risks.

"It's scary when the price of bitcoin just goes straight up. This pullback was needed," analysts at TradeStation Crypto said.

Strategists at Bank of America Corp. have already described the recent rise of bitcoin prices as the "mother of all bubbles." But market analysts at AvaTrade said the drop in price over the past days was a "healthy correction" that was long overdue.

Bitcoin prices first broke $20,000 in mid-December. They reached more than $30,000 a coin earlier in the month. The recent rise was a big jump from the $4,000 recorded before the pandemic early last year.

Still, many traders dealing in Bitcoin remain optimistic about the future of digital currencies. They said more and more digital payments options - such as PayPal and Square - are now integrating cryptocurrencies.