Traders struggled to pinpoint reasons for the rally, which briefly propelled Bitcoin above $5,000 and increased the value of digital assets tracked by CoinMarketCap.com by about $17 billion in less than an hour. The biggest virtual currency was trading at $4,718.39 as of 9:38 a.m. in London, up 14 percent for the day, according to Bloomberg composite pricing. Rival coins Ether, XRP and Litecoin also jumped, as did cryptocurrency-linked stocks including Remixpoint Inc. and CMC Markets Plc.
“The Bitcoin market and crypto market in general continues to be small relative to the rest of the markets — and emotional,” said Jehan Chu, managing partner at blockchain investment and advisory firm Kenetic Capital. “It’s still very much subject to waves of enthusiasm. I don’t think today is anything special.”
“Bitcoin is still primarily retail-led,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda Corp. in London. “It’s still a relatively unsophisticated area of trading.”
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