In what was a relatively quiet week in the world of digital currency, advances in the traded prices of bitcoin and litecoin took center stage.
Bitcoin (BTC/USD) advanced as high as $259, challenging its greatest levels since March. While the advance of 12% is nothing impressive by historical standards, particularly when taking place over the span of several days, it was a marked change from one of bitcoin's flattest two-month stretches ever.
The rise was nothing compared with that of litecoin, which, helped by its initial approach back to $2.00 in May, soared to above $3.00. The rally was punctuated with a spike of 32% in less than 24hours, bringing its total 30-day return to 120%. The gains were the greatest since late January, and at their peak near $3.20, prices were their highest since December. In vastly outperforming bitcoin, the LTC/BTC rate rose above 0.013, approaching its highest level since last August's volatility.
There was not much by way of fundamental news to rationalize the rallies. A pair of digital currency startups, Case and Reveal, each got $1.5 million in funding. Case is a provider of hardware bitcoin wallets secured by multisignature and biometric technologies. Reveal is a social media app that created its own digital currency, although not based on cryptography.
Another two reputable platforms added bitcoin to their available instruments. Bitcoin Tracker One, an exchange traded note (ETN) launched last month on the Stockholm stock Exchange, became available to international traders on Interactive Brokers. And bitcoin exchange Coinsetter partnered with ShiftForex to make its bitcoin Liquidity accessible to nearly every Forex broker.
