Investing.com – Bitcoin had its biggest daily gain in almost two months as traders' appetite for cryptos returned after Spanish banking giant Santander (MC:SAN) launched an international payment service based on blockchain technology.
Bitcoin rose 12.30% to $7,731.6 on the Bitfinex exchange.
Some cited the move higher in bitcoin was based on reports that Spanish banking giant Santander was starting a blockchain based international payment service.
Santander will roll out its cross-border payments system, “One Pay FX,” for its customers in Spain, the UK, Brazil and Poland on Friday. One Pay was said to use distributed ledger technology developed by Ripple.
The move by the Spanish bank revived battered hopes that the digital ledger technology - which powers bitcoin - has role to play in the mainstream payments space.
The news helped turn sentiment positive on cryptocurrencies, offsetting a recent raft of negative news mostly related to ongoing regulatory efforts to curb cryptocurrency activity.
The total market cap of cryptocurrencies rose sharply to about $302 billion, at the time of writing, from about $269 billion on Wednesday, signalling a meaningful return of investor demand for cryptocurrencies.
Yet, investors remained wary of yet another bull trap in bitcoin. A term describing a false signal indicating that a downward trend in a security has reversed and is heading upwards when, in fact, the security will continue to decline.
Ripple XRP rose 20.80% to $0.60400 on the Poloniex exchange, while Ethereum rose 11.66% to $469.00.