{"id":308482,"date":"2019-04-02T09:45:02","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T07:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=308482"},"modified":"2019-04-02T09:45:44","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T07:45:44","slug":"is-bitcoin-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/308482\/is-bitcoin-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Bitcoin making a comeback?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"article\">\n<div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>Bitcoin climbed suddenly on Tuesday to the highest level since November, leading a surge in virtual currencies and ending three months of calm in the $160 billion market.<\/p>\n<p>Traders struggled to pinpoint a reason for the rally, which briefly lifted Bitcoin above $5,000 and increased the value of digital assets tracked by CoinMarketCap.com by about $17 billion in less than an hour.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest virtual currency was trading at $4,686.68 as of 7:43 a.m. in London, up 14% for the day, according to Bloomberg composite pricing.<\/p>\n<p>Rival coins Ether, Ripple and Litecoin also jumped, as did cryptocurrency-linked stocks in Asia including Remixpoint Inc and Monex Group Inc.<\/p>\n<p>While sudden swings in Bitcoin are nothing new, price action in the virtual currency has been relatively subdued this year as investors weighed the prospects for more mainstream adoption after last year\u2019s 74 percent crash.<\/p>\n<p>Market participants say big buy or sell orders in Bitcoin can often lead to outsized moves, in part because volume is spread across dozens of venues. Trend-following individual investors can also exacerbate volatility.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Bitcoin market and crypto market in general continues to be small relative to the rest of the markets &#8211; and emotional,\u201d said Jehan Chu, managing partner at blockchain investment and advisory firm Kenetic Capital.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s still very much subject to waves of enthusiasm. I don\u2019t think today is anything special, other than a temporary enthusiasm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>George Harrap, chief executive officer at Bitspark, a cryptocurrency firm, said he\u2019s putting \u201cmost things on pause\u201d until the market settles down. His contacts in the Bitcoin community have yet to come up with a catalyst for the sudden jump.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The reason why? Anybody\u2019s guess at the moment,&#8221; Harrap said.<\/p>\n<p><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Bitcoin.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-308486\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Bitcoin.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Bitcoin.png 1200w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Bitcoin-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Bitcoin-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Bitcoin-1024x576.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/308214\/the-most-satisfied-banking-customers-in-south-africa-and-who-the-unhappy-ones-are-switching-to\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">These South African banks have the happiest customers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bitcoin climbed suddenly on Tuesday to the highest level since November, leading a surge in virtual currencies and ending three months of calm in the $160 billion market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":289834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[5537,26],"class_list":["post-308482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-bitcoin","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308482"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308490,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308482\/revisions\/308490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}