The price of bitcoin surged today, rising more than 9% and exceeding $900 for the first time in nearly a week.

Average prices across exchanges breached this level at 17:45 UTC, rallying to as much as $906.38 by 20:00 UTC, the highest total observed since 11th January on CoinDesk’s USD Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) reveals.

Overall, bitcoin prices climbed into the low $900s after gaining more than $50 earlier in the session, rising to $896.75 by 08:15 UTC after opening at roughly $830.

By climbing more than 9% during the session, bitcoin prices broke out of the relative calm they had enjoyed for several sessions, when the digital currency’s price repeatedly fluctuated between $800 and $840.

New optimism

Yet, under the surface, there have been changes in sentiment.

Following the decisions by China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), to meet with major exchanges last week, nobody knows for sure whether China’s central bank will take further action.

Such uncertainty, it seems, has given way to positivity.

“It seems the PBOC is not going to do anything further damaging than limiting leverage,” Kong Gao, marketing manager at China-based trading firm Richfund, told CoinDesk.

Other China-based traders, when surveyed, acknowledged that there is a perception the central bank will take no further action.

Fear and doubt

However, there were signs that the absence of any news has given way to speculation.

Rik Willard, founder and manager of Agentic Group, for example, theorized that the wider belief that the PBoC’s actions may have been a way of the bank testing its market influence.

“If I were the Chinese government, I’d be testing the power that my words (regulatory or otherwise) have over the global marketplace,” he said.

Petar Zivkovski, COO for leveraged bitcoin trading platform Whaleclub, emphasized that traders are less confident than usual, a statement that is backed up by Whaleclub data showing the market is 78% long.

This compares to the three weeks through 4th January, when the market was at least 90% long during nearly every session.

He noted how this nervousness makes the recent rally vulnerable, concluding:

“This price rise is fragile from that perspective.”

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