After a week in which the price of bitcoin vacillated wildly, the cryptocurrency returned to a bull run on Sunday, hitting its highest level in just over 12 months and teasing the $9,000 mark.

Bitcoin hit a recent low of $7,905.27 at 7:35 a.m. EDT Sunday before buyers entered the market at 3 p.m., driving it to $8,910.43 by 9 p.m., its highest level since May 11, 2018. The rapid price increase saw articles written even six hours ago already out of date, with the cryptocurrency and financial press struggling to keep up the bitcoin’s price inflation.

As usual, the reasons behind the latest surge are uncertain, but it came at the same time as a large uptick in trading volume. CoinMarketCap reported a $10.3 billion increase in trading volume over the last 24 hours. However, CoinDesk pointed out that the “Real 10” index,  a metric that takes into account trading volume from exchanges reporting honest volume figures, reported a $3.1 billion increase in trading volume.

Bitcoin wasn’t alone in seeing its price surge over the weekend as other leading cryptocurrencies also experienced healthy price growth.

Ethereum was up almost 7% over the last 24 hours, to $266.79, while Ripple XRP rose about 6.4% and Bitcoin Cash 6.8%. The next largest cryptocurrencies by market cap, Litecoin and EOS, were up 9% and 8.5%, respectively, as of 10:30 p.m. EDT.

Referencing a report earlier in the week, Ethereum World News noted that bitcoin continues to trade in a symmetrical triangle pattern, a chart pattern characterized by two converging trend lines connecting a series of sequential peaks and troughs. Those trend lines should be converging at a roughly equal slope. That pattern is said to suggest a breakout in bitcoin’s price at around $10,000.

Whatever the next price move for bitcoin, investors, particularly those who held onto cryptocurrency since its peak in December 2017, will be feeling mildly confident at this point.

Bitcoin only broke though the $4,000 mark for the first time this year March 31, meaning that its price has now more than doubled in just shy of two months. Overall, bitcoin is up over 150% since the beginning of the year.

After teasing $9,000, bitcoin was trading slightly down from its peak, sitting at $8,722.71 as of 10:35 p.m. EDT, up more than 8% over the last 24 hours.

Image: 30478819@N08/Flickr