Crypto Today: Bitcoin gains more than 10%, rises above $15K

• Founders Fund places a huge bet on Bitcoin according to the WSJ.
• The total market cap remains near all-time highs around $660 billion.

After the Wall Street Journal reported that Founders Fund, run by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who was also an early Facebook investor, had bought millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin, the BTC/USD pair gained traction and broke above the critical $15,000 level. As of writing, the pair was trading at $15,114, adding 11%, according to the latest available data on coinmarketcap.com.

"Founders Fund has amassed hundreds of millions of dollars of the volatile cryptocurrency, people familiar with the matter said. The bet has been spread across several of the firm’s most recent funds, including one that began investing in mid-2017 and made Bitcoin one of its first investments," the WSJ's article read.

Earlier today,  Financial Times reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s economic advisor, Sergei Glazev, said a cryptocurrency could be useful to carry out sensitive activity on behalf of the state. “We can settle accounts with our counterparties all over the world with no regard for sanctions,” Mr. Glazev further added. 

With the exception of IOTA, every single cryptocurrency in the top ten in terms of market capitalization recorded gains against the greenback. The total market cap of all cryptocurrencies reached an all-time high of $668 billion on Tuesday.