Bitcoin soared to a new record high Monday, topping $72,000 for the first time amid increasing institutional acceptance and continuing an impressive rally that has pulled the market back from the depths of a deep “crypto winter” that has hampered momentum for years following a series of major crashes and scandals in recent years.
Key facts
- The price of bitcoin rose around 5% to $72,393 on Monday morning.
- It marks a new milestone for the world’s largest cryptocurrency, which has risen nearly 12% over the past week and climbed to a record high of around $69,000 last week.
- Bitcoin has rallied from around $42,000 at the start of the year, notching gains of around 70% and reaching—and then exceeding—prices last seen in 2021, when the market crashed following a series of high profile scandals and the collapse of major institutions.
- Ether, which trails bitcoin as world’s second largest cryptocurrency by a sizable margin, has also climbed nearly 16% over the last week to $4,064.
- It is the first time the token has broken the $4,000 barrier since late 2021, bringing gains for the year to around 80%.
- An array of smaller but still valuable crypto tokens has also gained in the past week, including Binance’s BNB (27%), Solana’s sol (14%), dogecoin (7%), Shiba Inu (30%), Avalanche (5%) and polkadot (11%).
News peg
The crypto rally is buoyed by increasing investor enthusiasm, the approval of crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and an impending crunch through the bitcoin halving, a key supply-limiting feature written into the mathematical foundations of the cryptocurrency that has historically bumped prices.
The U.K.’s financial regulator softened its stance on the digital assets on Monday and said it will permit some bitcoin-linked securities to be listed on the stock market. It comes after the Securities and Exchange Commission authorized bitcoin ETFs for the first time in January.
Big number
$2.84 trillion. That’s how much the total cryptocurrency market is worth as of writing.
The market has grown nearly 4% in the last 24 hours and around 8% over the past week. Overall, the crypto market has nearly tripled in value over the past year, rising from just under $1 trillion to nearly $3 trillion.
The sector is dominated by bitcoin, which makes up around half the market and has a market capitalization of around $1.41 trillion. Ethereum is a distant second to bitcoin but with a total value of $484.5 billion it is around 17% of the total market and still a major market force.
The only other cryptocurrency with a market cap exceeding $100 billion is Tether, the world’s biggest stablecoin.
Crucial quote
Former President Donald Trump spoke favorably about bitcoin on Monday and described it as an “additional form of currency” that has “taken on a life” of its own.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election, suggested his administration would have a lax approach to cryptocurrencies if he is elected.
“I’m not sure that I’d want to take it away at this point,” he said, stressing that he is a traditionalist who wants just “one currency,” the U.S. dollar, and that he “would not allow countries to go off the dollar.”
Trump’s comments are a far cry from his stance on cryptocurrencies just a few years ago, when he said the sector is a “disaster waiting to happen” and slammed bitcoin as a “scam.”
This article was first published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
