Bitcoin Price Notches 6% Increase as Cryptocurrency Market Jumps $20 Billion

Bitcoin Price Notches 6% Increase as Cryptocurrency Market Jumps $20 Billion

Over the past 24 hours, the cryptocurrency market has gained $20 billion, as major cryptocurrencies bitcoin and Ethereum recorded solid gains. Bitcoin increased by more than 6 percent, while Ethereum, EOS, Litecoin, Ripple, and Bitcoin Cash rose by around 4 percent.

Volumes are Back
Changpeng Zhao, the founder and CEO at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency as demonstrated by cryptocurrency market data provider LiveCoinWatch below, noted that volumes across most major cryptocurrency exchanges are back, signaling an increase in demand for cryptocurrencies.

Zhao stated, “good to see volumes are returning across the board,” as the cryptocurrency market began to demonstrate a large increase in daily trading volume, which has been relatively low ever since the price of bitcoin dropped to the $7,000 region earlier this month.

Storm, an Ethereum-based blockchain platform that incentivizes users for carrying out micro tasks, was the best performing cryptocurrency of the day, as it increased by around 170 percent. Currently, Storm remains as the second most liquid cryptocurrency in the global market behind bitcoin, with a $2.3 billion trading volume.

The vast majority of Storm’s daily trading volume is generated by Upbit, South Korea’s second largest and the world’s fifth biggest cryptocurrency exchange, which recently listed Storm on its platform. The South Korean cryptocurrency market has been leading the recent rally of Storm.

ICON, better known as South Korea’s Ethereum, also experienced a massive surge in value after Bithumb, the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, listed it last week.

For several months, throughout January and February, volumes on South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges remained low. During the correction, many investors within South Korea, especially speculators and weak hands, were damaged by the sharp decline in most major cryptocurrencies.

Consequently, analysts predicted the cryptocurrency market in South Korea to take at least three to four months before it can recover. But, positive media coverage of public figures such as Peter Thiel, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and billionaire investor Alan Howard led the local market to recovery swiftly.

Short-Term Trend
Over the past few days, daily volumes of bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies remained quite low, and the price of bitcoin dropped from $9,000 to $8,500 as a result. If the current daily trading volume of the cryptocurrency market can be sustained over the next few days, the market will be able to rebound from last week’s losses.

Aaron Brown, an expert in financial market research, stated that the demand for bitcoin from the public market has not increased nor decreased, as price movements have remained smooth.

“Both using historical actual price movements or option implied volatilities, volatility seems to be about equal across exercise prices. This suggests Bitcoin price movements are smooth, like a normal distribution, rather than characterized by fat tails, jumps and changes in volatility like most assets. Bitcoin volatility is very high, but the volatility captures all of the risk,” Aaron Brown wrote.