The crypto market has had a positive start to the week and continued its solid run during Monday afternoon trade.
This has taken the market value of the entire cryptocurrency industry back up to US$271.5 billion according to Coin Market Cap.
While the likes of ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Litecoin (LTC) have all pushed notably higher during the last 24 hours, the biggest contributor to the industry's gain has come from improvements in the bitcoin (BTC) price.
During the last 24 hours bitcoin has risen 2.5% to US$7,139.53 per coin, improving its market capitalisation by over US$3 billion to US$121.1 billion.
Why has bitcoin been climbing higher?
Bitcoin bulls appear to have responded positively to news that legendary investor George Soros is eyeing up cryptocurrencies.
According to Bloomberg, Soros Fund Management's Adam Fisher has been granted approval to trade cryptocurrencies.
Mr Soros has previously stated that: "As long as you have dictatorships on the rise you will have a different ending, because the rulers in those countries will turn to Bitcoin to build a nest egg abroad."
However, he has also been on record calling it a bubble, so it is unclear at this stage whether the fund will be going long or short on bitcoin.
In addition to this, Fortune reported on Friday that Venrock has made its entrance into the cryptocurrency space.
Venrock, which is the venture capital arm of the Rockefeller family, has teamed up with cryptocurrency investor group CoinFund to help entrepreneurs build businesses based on blockchains.
Both these developments appear to have led to a positive shift in trader investor sentiment once again.
Where the bitcoin price goes next, however, only time will tell. But rest assured that we'll keep you up to date with its moves as and when they happen.
