Is this trend due to large accounts operating on multiple exchanges or countless retail investors carrying price differences? Or is it caused by other operations?
I believe both alternatives are right. There are whales who operate in multiple exchanges, dealing with multiple crypto currencies and there are also many smaller investors who follow these whales' movements. Then we have the trends, hypes, bull runs which push different assets of crypto market upside, always led by bitcoin on the front. That is a clear signal of how speculative crypto market is.