The price of bitcoin is surging on the back of a strong night-time trading session (18:00 to 24:00 UTC) in which the cryptocurrency rose 10 percent to top $14,000 for the first time.
The second-best performing asset during the trading period (trailing only the largely unknown crypto asset TRON), bitcoin's strong upward move caps 24 hours in which its price climbed by over 20 percent across global exchanges, rising $2,000 in the process according to CoinMarketCap.
Data from the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) shows the price of bitcoin was just under $12,000 at 1:00 UTC on Wednesday, before climbing to $14,000 today. With the run-up, however, bitcoin has set a new all-time high of $14,097 on the BPI.
Speaking to the development, crypto hedge fund manager Alex Sunnarborg, of Tetras Capital, reported the likely culprit is a fear-of-missing-out now ensnaring both long-time market observers as well as new investors as the cryptocurrency prepares for its debut in futures products next week.
"People who had bitcoin and went into alts are going back into bitcoin," he remarked.
And there were some big losses in cryptocurrencies that provide weight to Sunnarborg's comments. During the night-time trading session, BitShares, Siacoin, Einsteinium, MaidSafeCoin and MonaCoin all saw near-10 percent losses, and of the top 20 assets, according to CoinMarketCap, just three had posted 24-hour gains.
Still, that's not to say the market wasn't up on the day. Data shows the total value of all cryptocurrenices is now nearing $400 billion, up from just under $10 billion at the start of 2017.