The price of Bitcoin’s virtual cryptocurrency is displayed on the phone screen in this photo.
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Bitcoin’s price soared on Wednesday after a strong settlement, rising to more than $ 50,000 again when Square announced it had bought $ 170 million in cryptocurrency.
At 4 am Eastern time, the world’s most valuable digital currency rose 7.5% at a price of $ 50,683, according to data from Coin Metrics. The cryptocurrency reached $ 51,369 a few hours earlier.
Other cryptocurrencies also had a boost, with ether and XRP rising 11.3% and 7.4%, respectively. So-called altcoins, or alternative cryptocurrencies, often rise in times of strength for bitcoin.
On Tuesday, Square announced that it bought 3,318 bitcoins at an average price of around $ 51,235. The fintech company, which is run by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, said that bitcoin now represents about 5% of its total assets.
It is not the first time Square has invested in bitcoin – the company bought $ 50 million in digital currency last year. Dorsey is one of the most well-known supporters of bitcoin, having once said that he believes it will eventually become the “single currency” of the internet.
Bitcoin had a rough start to the week, dropping from a record high of $ 58,356 on Sunday to $ 45,501 on Tuesday. It is not uncommon for bitcoin to experience violent attacks of volatility – the digital token remarkably rose to almost $ 20,000 in 2017 before entering a bear market the following year.
Bitcoin is still more than 70% to date and more than 400% in the last 12 months. The impressive recovery of the crypto asset has attracted everyone’s attention, from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Earlier this week, Yellen called bitcoin an “extremely inefficient” means of payment and warned about its use in illicit activities.
“It is a highly speculative asset and … I think people should be aware that it can be extremely volatile,” the former Federal Reserve chairman said at a New York Times DealBook conference. “I am concerned about the potential losses that investors may suffer.”
Musk, however, proved to be a bitcoin believer. His electric car company recently invested $ 1.5 billion in corporate cash in the cryptocurrency, and the billionaire tech entrepreneur said it may be “on the verge of wide acceptance” among conventional financial services companies.
But even Musk has suggested that current bitcoin price levels may be unsustainable, tweeting over the weekend that he thinks prices for bitcoin and the rival ether token “look high”.