Values in bitcoin and rival cryptocurrencies have surged over the weekend, triggering hopes of a change in fortunes for the ailing market.
Bitcoin prices leapt from $3,400 per coin to nearly $3,700 (£2,630 to £2,860) on Friday, with values remaining above $3,600 (£2,780) over the weekend, according to ranking website CoinMarketCap.
Rival coins also made considerable gains, with Ethereum jumping from $104 to $120 (£80 to £92) over the past three days, and Ripple breaking above the $0.30 (£0.23) threshold.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Experts are uncertain as to what caused the sudden market turnaround, but The Independent reports that it may be down to an inflation of bitcoin’s hash rate - a measure of how much power the cryptocurrency consumes to “process transactions” and generate new coins.
The virtual currency’s hash rate reached its highest level since last November over the weekend, which means that there has been an increase in the amount of people joining the bitcoin network in a bid to unlock more coins - a process commonly referred to as mining.
The cryptocurrency market’s gains will be welcomed by investors, following months of declines.
But according to digital currency site NewsBTC, the virtual coin market is still in a “bearish” state. The site predicts that bitcoin will drop to around $3,500 (£2,710) over the coming days, before values level off.
-
How Mike Johnson is rendering the House ‘irrelevant’Talking Points Speaker has put the House on indefinite hiatus
-
Lazarus: Harlan Coben’s ‘embarrassingly compelling’ thrillerThe Week Recommends Bill Nighy and Sam Claflin play father-and-son psychiatrists in this ‘precision-engineered’ crime drama
-
Dutch center-left rises in election as far-right fallsSpeed Read The country’s other parties have ruled against forming a coalition
-
Bitcoin braces for a quantum computing onslaughtIN THE SPOTLIGHT The cryptocurrency community is starting to worry over a new generation of super-powered computers that could turn the digital monetary world on its head.
-
The noise of Bitcoin mining is driving Americans crazyUnder the Radar Constant hum of fans that cool data-centre computers is turning residents against Trump's pro-cryptocurrency agenda
-
What Trump's win could mean for Big TechTalking Points The tech industry is bracing itself for Trump's second administration
-
Network states: the tech broligarchy who want to create new countriesUnder The Radar Communities would form online around a shared set of 'values' and acquire physical territory, becoming nations with their own laws
-
Paraguay's dangerous dalliance with cryptocurrencyUnder The Radar Overheating Paraguayans are pushing back over power outages caused by illegal miners
-
2023: the year of crypto instabilityThe Explainer Crypto reached peaks — and valleys — throughout 2023
-
Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty: where does crypto go from here?Today's Big Question Conviction of the 'tousle-haired mogul' confirms sector's 'Wild West' and 'rogue' image, say experts
-
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in the BahamasSpeed Read
