Elon Musk, founder and chief engineer of SpaceX, speaks during the Satellite 2020 Conference in Washington, DC, United States, on March 9, 2020.
Yasin Ozturk | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Saturday that bitcoin prices “look high” after the cryptocurrency hit another record this week.
The price of bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency in the world, passed a major milestone on Friday, after the market value reached more than $ 1 trillion, leaving some of the top funders surprised. Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency, has also reached record levels.
“Money is just data that allows us to avoid the inconvenience of exchanging,” tweeted Musk, a great supporter of digital currencies. “This data, like all data, is subject to latency and error. The system will evolve to minimize both.”
In a post to follow, Musk added, “that said, BTC and ETH look high lol”, in a response to a user who said gold was better than bitcoin and money.
Bitcoin was trading at less than $ 54,000 per currency on Friday when it reached the new level, and rose above $ 55,000 later in the session, according to Coin Metrics. The cryptocurrency was trading above $ 57,000 on Saturday. The price of bitcoin has gone up by about 350% in the past six months.
Ethereum also hit a record $ 2,040.62 for a weekly gain of around 12%. It was trading at $ 1,996 on Saturday.
The rise of bitcoin was driven in part by increased adoption by major investors and companies. Bank of New York Mellon said this month it was moving into space.
Tesla also converted part of its balance sheet cash into bitcoin earlier this year and said it would start accepting the digital currency as payment, a move that generated even more interest in the currency.
– CNBC’s Jesse Pound contributed reporting