ETHEREUM soared back up past $500 today as cryptocurrency prices saw a massive spike in a crazy trading hour. Why did Ether hit $500? How much is Ethereum today?
The end of an abysmal quarter for cryptocurrencies appears to be closing after a flurry of trades late Thursday night saw a major price spike.
In just under an hour, prices soared across all major cryptocurrencies with Ethereum reporting some of the biggest gains in the market.
Ether saw a 19.37 percent increase overnight, pushing ETH up to $504.95 as of 9am.
The market-wide shift follows several months of steadily sliding prices for Ethereum, which was worth more than $1,300 in January 2018.
Why did Ether hit $500?
An inexplicable flurry of activity hit the markets late on Thursday evening, boosting prices across all major currencies.
Traders at 8pm saw bitcoin prices increase by more than $1,000, the coin’s best volume increase in its history.
Ether saw the biggest increase, but other cryptocurrencies soared in price in the hour.
Ripple, the third biggest coin by market cap, broke past $0.50, and Litecoin smashed into $131.
The flood of green in the market is a welcome relief for traders who had come to expect gloom from cryptocurrencies.
Q1 of 2018 was the worst period for all cryptocurrencies in the markets entire history, with more than half its value being wiped off in three months.
The market has struggled to rebound to earlier predictions that 2018 could be the strongest year ever.
Mid-April was expected to be a strong period, with American traders looking to pay capital gains tax before the deadline.
A strong sell-off period was expected, but not on this scale.
Ethereum spikes were assisted with the launch of Golem GNT, an ICO two years in the making.
Nicknamed the ‘Airbnb for computers’, Golem connects users with CPU to rent in exchange for GNT cryptocurrency.
The two-year delay caused some to suspect its effectiveness would be less than useful.
Julian Zawistowski, CEO and founder of Golem, told CoinDesk: “This is typical for software development in general, and blockchain in particular, we underestimate the complexity of what we want to do.
“You always underestimate how difficult it is, and this was obviously the case with us.
“Very often you have to invent the wheel to solve your problems. Not reinventing the wheel, but actually inventing the wheel.”
Ethereum traders can be happy the bulls are finally pushing into the market and look set to stay.
Despite the gains, Ed Cooper, head of mobile at fintech startup Revolut, told The Independent, investors should be cautious about betting on a positive direction of the market beyond the short term.
“We’d need to see a sustained rise over a number of weeks to signal the end of the bear market,” Cooper said. “We’re definitely not there yet.”
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