Bitcoin Rival Stellar Suddenly Soars After Shock Move

Bitcoin and many other major cryptocurrencies get their value from their scarcity–when supply shrinks, the value should increase, the logic goes.

The bitcoin price, which some expect will rally next year following a cut to the mining reward supply known as a halving, has been treading water since suddenly leaping at the end of October.

Now, bitcoin rival Stellar, the tenth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has suddenly soared after the Stellar Development Foundation “burned” over half the digital token’s supply–worth a staggering $4.7 billion.

“We didn’t start by wanting to burn. We started by asking, ‘what do we need,'” Stellar Development Foundation chief executive Denelle Dixon reportedly told the Stellar Meridian conference yesterday.

“As much as we wanted to use the lumens that we held, it was very hard to get…