(Reuters) – Bitcoin broke a new record and approached $ 50,000 on Sunday, taking advantage of its record rally, with Wall Street and Main Street increasingly adopting the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin recently stood at $ 48,700 on Sunday morning, an increase of more than 3%. It was traded upwards of $ 49,714 earlier in the day. Cryptocurrency has increased by almost 70% in the year to date.
After being avoided for a long time by traditional financial companies, bitcoin and other virtual currencies appear to be increasingly entering the market as an asset and a routine payment vehicle.
BNY Mellon said last week that it formed a new unit to help customers maintain, transfer and issue digital assets, just days after Elon Musk’s Tesla revealed that it bought $ 1.5 billion in cryptocurrency and would soon accept it as payment method for your cars.
On Friday, Canada’s Ontario Securities Commission approved the launch of Purpose Bitcoin ETF, the Toronto-based asset management company Purpose Investments Inc said in a statement. The OSC has confirmed that it has released the launch of the world’s first bitcoin-traded fund in a separate statement to Reuters.
“America’s institutional and corporate side is showing that this movement is not going to disappear anytime soon,” said Edward Moya, senior market strategist at OANDA. “There is still a lot of money that is going to get into that wave.”
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez also said on Friday that the city of Florida is trying to embrace bitcoin in its operations, a move that could pay dividends in terms of attracting technology companies.
In January, BlackRock Inc, the world’s largest asset manager, added bitcoin as an eligible investment to two funds.
Credit card giant Mastercard’s plans to support some cryptocurrencies have also raised bitcoin’s ambitions over conventional finance, although many banks remain reluctant to get involved.
Cryptocurrency miner Riot Blockchain rose 14% on Friday and reached its highest value in more than 10 years, with a weekly gain of 110%, its biggest weekly gain since 2017. Digital asset technology company Marathon Patent Group presented a weekly gain of more than 70%.
Reporting by Fergal Smith in Toronto, David Randall in New York; Julien Ponthus in London, Karen Pierog in Chicago; Additional reporting by Ira Iosebashvili; Written by Alden Bentley; Editing by Ira Iosebashvili and Lisa Shumaker