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Bitcoin, the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency, reached a new record of more than $ 48,000 for the second time this week on Wednesday, while major technology and financial companies are eyeing virtual currencies.
Returns for the decentralized cryptocurrency, which was more than $ 47,000 at the time of publication, increased by more than 5% in 24 hours on Thursday and more than 60% in the year, according to the news website of blockchain and Coindesk cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin’s steady rise comes as Tesla, Mastercard, BNY Mellon and Twitter express growing interest in digital currencies.
| Ticker | Safety | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TSLA | TESLA INC. | 811.66 | +6.84 | + 0.85% |
| BK | THE BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON CORP. | 42.13 | +0.39 | + 0.93% |
| BAD | MASTERCARD INCORPORATED | 342.87 | +8.66 | + 2.59% |
| TWTR | TWITTER INC. | 68.56 | +0.79 | + 1.17% |
Tesla
Tesla said in a SEC filing on Monday that the company had invested $ 1.5 billion in bitcoin and would start accepting it as a form of payment, and the company’s founder, Elon Musk, added #bitcoin in his Twitter biography on February 5, when the coin’s price rose by about 20%.
“At this point, I think bitcoin is a good thing and I am a supporter of bitcoin,” said Musk during a live interview on the popular Clubhouse audio chat app on Sunday. “A lot of my friends tried to convince me to get involved with bitcoin for a long time.”
Michael Stark, market analyst for digital online website Exness, told FOX Business in a statement that while Tesla’s decision to buy the cryptocurrency “may look like a bubble by investing in a bubble, but realistically many assets can be considered bubbles .
“That said, $ 1.5 billion in bitcoin is not as big as it looks. It’s only about 0.2% of the cryptocurrency’s market capitalization at the moment,” he said. “Regardless of what Talisman business leaders do or don’t do, bitcoin is likely to continue to grow sooner or later.”
BNY Mellon
BNY Mellon, the oldest bank in the United States, announced on Thursday that it will be the first global bank to create a “digital assets” service in late 2021.
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“BNY Mellon is proud to be the first global bank to announce plans to provide an integrated service for digital assets,” said Roman Regelman, CEO of asset services and digital head of BNY Mellon, in a statement on Thursday.
He continued: “The growing customer demand for digital assets, the maturity of advanced solutions and the improvement of regulatory clarity present a tremendous opportunity for us to extend our current service offerings to this emerging field. Pending further evaluations and approvals, we hope to begin to offer these innovative products and industry modeling capabilities later this year. “
MasterCard
Mastercard also announced on Wednesday that it would begin supporting certain cryptocurrencies later this year.
“We are now preparing for the future of cryptography and payments, announcing that this year Mastercard will begin supporting selected cryptocurrencies directly on our network,” the company said in a blog. “This is a major change that will require a lot of work. We will be very vigilant about which assets we will support based on our principles for digital currencies, which focus on consumer protection and compliance.”
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Twitter’s chief financial officer, Ned Segal, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday that the company is considering paying employees in cryptocurrencies if they prefer this form of payment.
“We did a lot of initial thinking to consider how we could pay employees if they asked to be paid in bitcoin, how we could pay a supplier if they asked to be paid. [paid] in bitcoin and whether we need to have bitcoin on our balance sheet if that happens, “he said.
He added that the idea is something that Twitter continues to “study and look at”, but the company hasn’t “made any changes yet”. Twitter told FOX Business that it had nothing more to add at the moment.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey also owns Square, a digital payment company that invested $ 50 billion in bitcoin, worth 4,709 coins, in October.
| Ticker | Safety | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SQ | SQUARE INC COM | 265.93 | +8.44 | + 3.28% |
“We believe that bitcoin has the potential to be a more ubiquitous currency in the future,” Square’s chief financial officer, Amrita Ahuja, said in a statement at the time. “As adoption grows, we intend to learn and participate in a disciplined manner. For a company that is building products based on a more inclusive future, this investment is a step on that journey.”
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Apple
A report by RBC Capital Markets revealed that Apple has a “clear opportunity” to offer a service for users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies.
| Ticker | Safety | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAPL | APPLE INC. | 135.13 | -0.26 | -0.19% |
“Apple’s installed base is 1.5 billion, and even if we assume that only 200 million users will transact, that’s 6.66x greater than Square,” said the report. “Therefore, the potential revenue opportunity would be in excess of $ 40 billion per year (15% incremental top line opportunity).”
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Several celebrities, from Musk to billionaire investor Mark Cuban, and rapper Snoop Dogg, recently evaluated the cryptocurrency trade, drawing attention to the unconventional asset.