It certainly has been a wonderful 24 hours for cryptocurrency traders with strong gains being seen across the board.
This has taken the value of the entire crypto market up to US$302.6 billion according to Coin Market Cap. This is an impressive 12% gain over the last 24 hours.
Here is the state of play on Friday morning:
The bitcoin (BTC) price has risen 11.3% over the last 24 hours to US$7,691.31 per coin, lifting its market capitalisation to US$130.5 billion. According to CNBC, one expert has put this strong gain down to a short squeeze. Nick Kirk from Cypher Capital stated that: "The ratio of short margin trades versus longs has been increasing recently. Buying volume ticked up today and a lot of these short trades got liquidated, helping fuel the rally."
The Ethereum (ETH) price has jumped 10% since this time yesterday to US$463.47. This has increased Ethereum's market capitalisation to US$45.8 billion.
The Ripple (XRP) price has been the best performer amongst the major coins with an 18% gain over the last 24 hours to 58.94 U.S. cents. This gives Ripple a market capitalisation of just over US$23 billion. Yesterday Spanish banking giant Santander announced that it was launching a blockchain-based foreign exchange service that uses Ripple's technology.
The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has climbed 9.3% during the last 24 hours to US$713.73 per token. This has lifted Bitcoin Cash's market capitalisation to US$12.2 billion.
The EOS (EOS) price is up 15.3% over the last 24 hours to US$8.88. This push higher means that EOS has overtaken Litecoin (LTC) to become the fifth-largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalisation of just over US$7 billion. Traders have been fighting to get hold of EOS ahead of an "airdrop" on Sunday.
Outside the top five there were strong gains for Litecoin, Cardano (ADA), and IOTA (MIOTA). These three altcoins were up 8.3%, 21%, and 25.3%, respectively.
All eyes will be on the industry today to see if it can build on these gains and push even higher.
