Investing.com - Bitcoin prices seem to have found a bottom, as the digital currency gained another 4.1% on Monday and made its way back to $8,490.8 from a four-month low of below $6,000 last week. Bitcoin’s price has been on a steady climb since then, supported by U.S. regulators' comments at a senate hearing last Tuesday that were more positive than expected.
Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, was up 4.4% at $839.02 on the Bitfinex exchange.
Ripple's XRP token, was the outperformer today and jumped 10.8% to $1.00794 on the Poloniex exchange.
Meanwhile, Litecoin was trading 5.3% higher at $153.
Some focus is on reports of a cryptojacking attack that targeted a series of Australian government websites, which forced visitors’ computers to secretly mine cryptocurrency without their permission and in turn generate profits for the hacker.
Affected websites include the official website of the Victorian parliament, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, the Queensland ombudsman, the Queensland Community Legal Centre homepage, and the Queensland legislation website, according to the reports.
It was reported last month that the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck lost more than 58 billion yen ($534.9 million) to hackers. Co-founder Yutsuke Otsuka said at the time the company did not know how the tokens went missing, and that Coincheck had suspended all withdrawals and halted trading in all tokens except Bitcoin following the event.
Meanwhile, a number of new cryptocurrencies exchanges are opening in South Korea, after some delay due to the tightened regulations the Korean government announced recently. Zeniex, a new crypto exchange, announced last week that it would begin service today while a couple of other exchanges would follow suit in the next few months.
Elsewhere, Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse gathered some attention following his comments that Ripple and other cryptocurrencies are not legitimate currencies but merely “digital assets”. Garlinghouse’s comments echoed the recent remarks from the banks and governments, which also added a large proportion of people to hold such digital coins for speculative purposes instead of using them to do commerce.
“I don’t call this cryptocurrency,” Garlinghouse said at the All Markets Summit on Cryptocurrency event, adding that such digital coins are not capable to be used in second transactions.