A recent surge in the price of Bitcoin (BTC) by over 20% in the past 36 hours has led many to wonder whether the bear market for crypto also known as crypto winter is turning the corner into crypto spring.

Around midnight Eastern time yesterday Bitcoin prices surged from just under $4,200 USD to $5,000 USD. Although there was a brief pullback, momentum in the price of the cryptocurrency has continued with it trading around the $5,000 mark as of the time of publishing of this article.

Bitcoin Price over Past 36 Hours

Bitcoin Price Last 36 Hours - Apr 3 2019

Source: Bitcoincharts; Time in EDT

This leads to the question, what has caused this sudden return of volatility and the potential birth of a crypto spring given that crypto markets had been relatively calm over the past several months ever since the sell off that started in November?

There have been several theories floated around.

Bitcoin ETF April Fools

On Monday an article from the website Finance Magnates outlined an emergency meeting by the SEC over the weekend whereby they ruled to approve two bitcoin-based ETFs. This far-fetched narrative was quite obviously an April Fools joke, which was clear to anyone who actually read the contents of the article. However, the joke did bring back some attention to what had been very quiet crypto markets.

 

Bitcoin Whale Reportedly Buys $100 million in BTC

A  more likely explanation for the sudden surge in the price of bitcoin comes from a report by Reuters that an “algorithmically-managed” order for around 20,000 BTC (~$100 million USD) spread across crypto exchanges Coinbase, Kraken, and Bitstamp was placed at the same time the price jumped. Reuters spoke with Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie, chief executive of crypto firm BCB Group who found patterns in the volumes of the trades on those three exchanges that suggested they were from a single buyer.

 

Altcoins Jump on the Bandwagon

The crypto spring hasn’t been isolated to Bitcoin either. The next 5 top cryptocurrencies by market cap have followed bitcoin’s price resurgence over the past 36 hours. In particular, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC) have surged significantly, outperforming the other coins. This could be due to the exuberance that the BCH and LTC communities have in rallying around momentum trading.

Altcoin Price Performance over the past 36 Hours

Altcoin Performance Last 36 Hours - Apr 3 2019

Source: CryptoCompare; Time in EDT

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