Bitcoin surges to four-month high

Bitcoin rose 15% on Tuesday to briefly touch the $5,000 mark for the first time in 2019.

According to CryptoCompare data, the popular cryptocurrency has reached its highest level since November 2018. Later on Tuesday afternoon in London it was sitting at $4,728.

“The reason for the sudden price jump wasn’t immediately clear. Whatever the catalyst was for the move above $4,400 this morning, the move was likely exacerbated by a combination of excited bulls and panicking sellers,” said OANDA analyst Craig Erlam.

“The volatility may well remain in the coming days which will keep things interesting and if we can hold above $4,400 then it could be a near-term bullish signal, with $6,000 being notable resistance above,” he added.

Tuesday's gain was probably triggered by an order worth about $100m spread across US-based exchanges Coinbase and Kraken and Luxembourg’s Bitstamp, Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie, chief executive of cryptocurrency firm BCB Group told Reuters.

Think Markets’ chief analyst Naeem Aslam said on Tuesday that this type of behaviour is expected from a market that is usually ruled by volatility.

“Bitcoin is a kind of a beast which has the ability to score more than 20% gain on a daily basis and we have seen this kind of rally towards the end of 2017 before the price crashed when it touched the all-time high of $20K,” he said.

Nevertheless, these rises are timid hops compared to 2017, but they come after a massive slump in the cryptocurrency market in 2018 when bitcoin fell more than 76% in the year.

Other virtual currencies were also higher, with ether and XRP both rising around 7%.