HODLers of Bitcoin received a big boost to their optimism today with the price of Bitcoin recovering by nearly $1,000 in just over half an hour. At the time of writing Bitcoin’s price surge is holding, with its price hovering around the $7,600 mark. Bitcoin’s price is at its highest since the end of March, with an increase of 11% for the day.
Despite a few recent glimmers of green in the coin price charts, the end of March and beginning of April has mostly been full of doom and gloom for Bitcoin owners. News streams have been full of “bubbles”, “bottoms” and “death crosses” leaving the potential of a sustained price recovery looking like the light at the end of the tunnel for many.
The price rise is being attributed to a high number of short sellers having their positions liquidated and an influx of interest from institutional investors. As Bitcoin’s price crossed $7,000, investors began to buy. 24-hour average trading volumes rose from $5.7 billion to, an again sustained, $8 billion plus.
“Whilst there has been some stability in the cryptocurrency markets over recent weeks, we’ve seen a record number of short positions building on major exchanges,” said Matthew Newton, Analyst at eToro, one of Europe’s largest trading platforms. “When the price began to rise this afternoon, a large number of shorts with big positions were squeezed. The resulting interest from buyers increased momentum, causing the price to jump $1000 in 30 minutes.”
Legendary stock market investors may view the cryptocurrency price cool off as a sign of the markets now maturing, and a safer time for them to enter. In the past few weeks George Soros, the Rockefeller family and the Rothschild’s have all been rumoured to be making movements towards cryptocurrency and blockchain-related investments.
These rumours may well be fuelling Bitcoin’s levelling, and subsequent price surge today. Most of the cryptocurrency market is following Bitcoin’s example with Ethereum and BCH gaining nearly 10%, Ripple over 16% and Litecoin over 7%. Only Tether and Bitcoin Diamond out of the top 50 coins are bucking the trend with both showing a price decline of under 1%.
The total market capitalization for all cryptocurrencies has gained $29 billion, with a $13 billion increase for Bitcoin alone.