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Bitcoin breaches $5,000 briefly on some exchanges

Large mystery order

However, a Reuters article considers a large mystery order was a catalyst:” Bitcoin soared to its highest in almost five months on Tuesday, pulling smaller cryptocurrencies up with it, after a major order by an anonymous buyer set off a frenzy of computer-driven trading, analysts said. ”

Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie of the BCB group said the catalyst for the rise was an order worth about $100 million spread across several exchanges. He said: “There has been a single order that has been algorithmically-managed across these three venues, of around 20,000 BTC. 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”.

Commentary

Nigel Green of the deVere Group said in a report that there is a growing sense that bitcoin is back. He claimed that the big jump is likely to attract many investors who had been sitting things out on the sidelines. This included institutional investors. Actually over time wild swings are fairly normal for bitcoin while lately it has been less volatile.

Naeem Aslam with TF Global Markets in the UK said the big move should not be that surprising saying: “Bitcoin is a kind of a beast which has the ability to score more than 20% gain on a daily basis and we have seen this kind of rally towards the end of 2017 before the price crashed.” He also argued that the spike would attract investors on the sidelines.

Lukman Otunuga of the brokerage FXTM also said explosive swings are nothing new but that the reason behind the present jump remains a mystery. Nevertheless, he said that the bulls could be back in town. The rise may be a classic case of momentum investing. People start buying creating a momentum that draws others to buy pushing the price ever upwards. Traders may be cashing in on the sudden move.

David Spika of GuidesStone Capital Management said in an interview that the rise was likely another “rebound in risk”. He noted that stocks had risen in the first quarter of this year in spite of the fact that bond yields were falling on worries that there would be a slowdown in economic growth. Spika claimed the bitcoin rally was another sign of exuberance that was not justified.

Bitcoin doing well this year

Bitcoin is up about 25 percent this year and more than 60 percent from the low of around $3,100 it hit in December.

More retailers are accepting forms of cryptocurrencies including bitcoin but also litecoin, ethereum and ripple. Overstockk, Shopify, and Newegg are examples of online retailers accepting cryptocoins in payment.

Fidelity the giant mutual fund established a trading platform for bitcoin and some altcoins near the end of last year.

Bitcoin still has a huge way to go to reach its all time high of around $20,000 in late 2017

Present situation

The bitcoin jump has pulled the 20 major cryptocurrencies up with it with all 20 being in the green at present. Ethereum is up almost 14 percent and Ripple about 10 percent. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is up 26 percent.

24 hours ago BTC opened at $4,126. Since then it has been as high as $4,961 but only as low as $4,123. It made a big jump early and then dropped back and is trading mostly sideways for a while. CoinDesk uses an average from several exchanges as a result its figures do not show BTC breaking the $5,000 level. Some Asian exchanges are often quite a bit higher than others.

At 14:25 Central Daylight Time bitcoin had dropped back somewhat but was still at $4,740 up more than $600 from its open.
The present price of bitcoin along with other cryptocoins can be found here.

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