Major cryptos surge after bitcoin suddenly rises from the dead

The world’s biggest digital currencies by market capitalization have risen after leading crypto bitcoin topped $5,000 for the first time since November, gaining more than 20 percent in one day.

Crypto markets jumped higher on Wednesday, with ethereum and XRP gaining by 9.26 percent and 5.8 percent respectively, according to the CoinMarketCap website. Two more of the top five tokens – litecoin and EOS – were up 20 and 12 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, a bitcoin off-shoot, bitcoin cash, posted the biggest gains as it rose around 50 percent and headed to $350 per token.

The significant increase in digital currencies’ prices, the likes of which has not been seen for months, was triggered by an earlier bitcoin (BTC) price breakout. The token soared to more than a four-month high on Tuesday, briefly breaching the $5,000 level before retreating slightly. It was still up more than four percent on Wednesday afternoon, trading at $4 959.36 as of 11:37 GMT.

Following the rally, the total crypto market volume over the last 24 hours hit $89.5 billion – the highest on record since January 2018, data from CoinMarketCap shows. The volume rose by more than $20 billion in just one day.

The sudden surge may have been driven by a $100-million algorithmically managed order for the digital currency that was placed overnight and spread across the US exchanges Coinbase and Kraken and Luxembourg’s Bitstamp, chief executive of cryptocurrency firm BCB Group, Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie, believes.

“There has been a single order that has been algorithmically managed across these three venues, of around 20,000 BTC,” he told Reuters. “If you look at the volumes on each of those three exchanges – there were in-concert, synchronized units of volume of around 7,000 BTC in an hour.”

Bitcoin hit its highest level of around $20,000 in December 2017, but has been gradually losing value since then. Just one year after the record was set, it was trading as low as $3,200.

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