Qtum is Chinese Ethereum 2.0 with a seemingly faster, more innovative dev. team. While it's certainly possible for price manipulation, I highly doubt that is what's going on. I think people are coming to the realization that Qtum has the potential to be a real contender with Ethereum for blockchain technology, and we are still very early in the game.

If Qtum, or more specifically the Enterprise Qtum Alliance, is able to gather support from big companies, there will no doubt be a trend like that seen with the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance Announcements (a jump from ~$12-->~$50, then from ~$90-->~$230). I think this is also being factored into the price, given the collaboration with PwC.