did altcoins really rise?
lets see!
the thing about altcoins is that they are being traded against bitcoin not fiat. even if they have fiat markets, those markets aren't usually as popular as the btc markets.
take Ripple for example. yesterday when bitcoin was $6800 XRP was 7400 satoshi or $0.50 then in that hour when bitcoin went up to ~$8000, XRP went to $0.55 (10% rise) but its real price went down to 6900 satoshi (~7% drop).
checking the volumes XRP/BTC has nearly 6 times more volume than XRP/USD which shows people are trading XRP with bitcoin a lot more than they are trading it with USD. and that means altcoins didn't really rise, it was more like an illusion of rise.
I think Yes, and volume in bitcoin has increased too. You may have a point here, but I think there is an increased also on total market value. One factor that affects is due to the approval of Muslim country that bitcoin is halal.
it was never not-halal to begin with.
there was some FUD flying around trying to convince people that it is not and scare them away from bitcoin but the fact is there is a lot of investors coming from Muslim countries and i have even heard of new cryptocurrencies being created by their central banks.
google "Iran Post Bank cryptocurrency" and you should find the news. they have even been inviting experts to join their team and help developing the coin.