Last week’s bitcoin price jump took the crypto-asset from $7,400 to $9,500 and was one of the most substantial gains for BTC in a twenty-four-hour span.
Despite a relatively flat market in the weeks preceeding the move, the price surged more than $3,000 in a matter of hours. You can see the most recent price jump below – it is the green line and it is the 5th largest 24 hour price move in the last 5 years. In this article we look at the causes of these top 5 bitcoin price rallies.
Bitcoin's Price Jump at the end of October | Source: CryptoCompare
Numerous theories were put forth to account for the sudden price change, most analysts settled on the positive impact of comments made by the People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping.
Speaking to a committee in Beijing during the early hours of Oct. 24, President Xi lauded the value of blockchain technology and highlighted the industry as an avenue for China to promote innovation.
Xi said,
“We must take the blockchain as an important breakthrough for independent innovation of core technologies.”
However, it took several hours for the crypto markets to respond to China’s endorsement of blockchain, leading some investors to question whether other forces were driving the market’s movement.
I still don’t know whether this is the reason for the Bitcoin pump tho – the first small pump is 6PM china time, before the news was aired on Xinwen Lianbo (7PM) and the major pump is 11PM China time.
So during the news time actually there was little to non price movement pic.twitter.com/frwtwTq878
— Dovey 以德服人 Wan 🗝 🦖 (@DoveyWan) October 25, 2019
Gold bug and regular crypto critic Peter Schiff chimed in on the situation, claiming that bitcoin’s massive price rally had little to do with China. Instead, Schiff argued that BTC’s price was being manipulated by whales, and predicted that the currency would soon crash as manipulators dumped the currency at a higher price.
Bitcoin’s recent sharp rally likely had nothing to do with China, or any fundamental factor. It clearly looks like market manipulation by whales looking to sucker in momentum buyers. By pumping up a technically weak market, they are able to dump more #Bitcoin at higher prices.
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) October 28, 2019
While bitcoin investors continue to bask in the glow of a 28 percent price gain over 24 hours, here are a few other times that BTC’s price jumped substantially over the last five years.
January 2015: Sudden Recovery After a Drop
The situation looked dire for bitcoin in early 2015 with bitcoin’s valuation dipping to as low as $170 on Jan. 15, falling more than 22 percent in 24 hours.
However, the currency made a reversal in price over the next two weeks. BTC staged a steady recovery from $170 on Jan. 15 2015 to near $200 by the end of the week. On Jan. 23 2015, the price of bitcoin really began to take off. BTC climbed from $240 to over $300, making a rapid reversal on the price fall that saw the coin dip to a dangerously low level.
It would be the last time bitcoin would trade for less than $200.
July 2017: Bitcoin’s Price Responds to Delayed Hard Fork
Most current investors remember 2017 fondly as the year that bitcoin’s price made meteoric leaps and crypto-assets gained mainstream attention.
In July 2017, the price of bitcoin gained more than 28 percent in 24 hours, following news that a hard fork of the currency had been averted. While forks have become more commonplace over the last two years, at the time it created trepidation in the market stemming from concerns that the split would harm investor confidence.
Miners coalesced around the BIP 91 (SegWit) proposal, which would improve the efficiency of bitcoin’s blockchain while avoiding a fork of the original code.
Following the news, BTC rose from around $2,300 to near $3,000 in the span of hours, as investors piled in to catch the upward ride.
December 2017: The Bulls Take Control
The final month of 2017 was one of the wildest rides any financial market has ever experienced. The price of bitcoin had climbed throughout the year, minting overnight crypto millionaires and bringing BTC into the national spotlight. By November, the currency was trading for $7,300, with many analysts wondering when the bull run would end.
Between Nov. 22 and Dec. 7, the price of bitcoin rose from $9,600 to $16,500. Even more impressively, BTC jumped from $16K to almost $20K in a single day on Dec. 7. In the span of 20 minutes, the price of bitcoin increased $2000 on Coinbase’s GDAX exchange before suddenly falling back to $15,000.
The sudden and erratic price movement led to temporary exchange outages for GDAX and Bitfinex, as the crypto bulls generated enough excitement to literally crash the market.
April 2019: Brexit and April Fools
After languishing in a bear market throughout all of 2018, which has since been referred to as a “crypto winter” year for investment, the price of BTC made a sudden turn on April 1.
Bitcoin ended March trading at just above $4,000, which was a welcomed sign from investors who had watched BTC fall from $19,000 the year before to $3,000. While many analysts were calling the price increase a final push from bitcoin bulls, the price continued to rise through April 1, breaking above $5,000 in the span of 24 hours.
Bitcoin April 1 price increase was attributed to an April Fools' joke | Source: CryptoCompare
Some analysts tried to say the price of BTC was responded to an April Fools’ article by Finance Magnates, which claimed that the US Securities & Exchange Commission was holding an “emergency meeting” to approve a bitcoin-exchange traded fund.
Others pointed to the debate surrounding Brexit, believing that a no-deal situation for the UK and EU would result in an increased demand for crypto-assets. In reality it was most likely a large fund buying into a market which at the time had little sellers left after over a year of price declines. What will cause the next 20% one day bitcoin price rally?
Featured Image Credit: Photo via PIxabay.com
