Bitcoin hit a new record high and reached $ 50,000 on Sunday, building on its highest rally as Wall Street and Main Street continue to embrace the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin recently stood at $ 48,700 on Sunday morning, up more than 3%. It had traded as high as $ 49,714 earlier in the day. The cryptocurrency is up almost 70% year to date.
After a long period of being driven by traditional financial companies, bitcoin and other virtual currencies seem to be increasingly entering the mainstream as a resource and as a standard payment vehicle.
BNY Mellon said last week that they set up a new unit to help clients hold, move and export digital assets, just days after Tesla’s Elon Musk`s revealed has bought $ 1.5 billion worth of cryptocurrency and would soon accept it as a payment method for its cars.
On Friday, the Ontario Securities Commission of Canada approved the launch of the Bitcoin ETF, Purpose Investments Inc, a Toronto-based asset management company, said in a statement. The OSC confirmed that they had launched the world’s first bitcoin trading fund, in a separate statement to Reuters.
“The institutional and corporate American side shows that this trend will never go away any time soon,” said Edward Moya, senior market expert at OANDA. “There’s still a lot of money going to jump on this band.”
Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami also said Friday that the city of Florida is trying to embrace bitcoin in its operations, a move that could bring benefits in terms of attracting technology companies.
In January, BlackRock Inc, the world’s largest asset manager, listed bitcoin as a worthy investment for two assets. Credit card giant Mastercard’s plans to offer support for some cryptocurrencies also added to bitcoin’s intentions for mainstream finance, though many banks are still willing to get involved.
Cryptocurrency miner Riot Blockchain rose 14% on Friday and hit its highest level in more than 10 years with a weekly gain of 110%, the biggest weekly gain since 2017. Digital asset tech company Marathon Patent showed Group weekly gain of over 70%.