The cryptocurrency markets are continuing to grow substantially Friday, April 13, after Bitcoin’s[1] (BTC) jump yesterday of over $1,000 in 30 minutes[2], with BTC today above $8,000 and Ethereum[3] (ETH) having broken above $500 for the first time since March 26.
BTC is currently trading at around $8,118, up by almost 18 percent over a 24 hour period to press time.
ETH is up by over 22 percent over a 24 hour period to press time, currently trading for around $513.
All of the top ten coins are CoinMarketCap are in the green, all with gains of more than 10 percent on the day. IOTA[4] has seen the most growth, up more than 35 percent over a 24 hour period and currently trading around $1.42.
Total market cap is now solidly above $300 bln, at around $323 bln by press time, having jumped around $52 bln since yesterday.
The overall price spike could be attributed to a report released yesterday that crypto is generally permissible under Shariah law[5], but the week has seen other positive crypto news that could have contributed in a big way as well.
Fundstrat’s Tom Lee[6] sees the reason for the rise as a combo of Santander’s news that they would launch a Blockchain-based international payment service with Ripple[7], that crypto selling for taxes is almost at its end, and that “speculative short investors [are] being squeezed out of the market for the surge,” according to Bloomberg[8].
According to Miguel Shwiezer, the co-founder of hedge fund Quantia Capital, the price jump caused short sellers to close positions, “spurring a waterfall of buy orders.” Bloomberg writes that there were more than
