Bitcoin breaks $50,000 for the first time
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Bitcoin (BTC-USD) broke past the $50,000 level on Tuesday morning as the cryptocurrency continues its stunning rally.
The cryptocurrency traded as high as $50,645 on Tuesday, before slipping back below $50,000. Bitcoin has surged more than 71% since the beginning of the year.
Last week, bitcoin surged after Tesla (TSLA) revealed it bought $1.5 billion worth of the digital currency and that it plans to start accepting bitcoin as payment in the “near future.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk discussed bitcoin during an interview on the popular voice chat app Clubhouse.
“I do think at this point bitcoin is a good thing. And, so, I am a supporter of bitcoin. Like I said, I was late to the party, but I am a supporter of bitcoin. And I think, bitcoin is really on the verge of getting broad acceptance by conventional finance people,” Musk said at the time.
Michael Saylor, the CEO of business intelligence software company MicroStrategy (MSTR), the first publicly traded company to add bitcoin to its balance sheet, told Yahoo Finance Live last week that he sees an "avalanche" of corporations that will embrace the cryptocurrency. Earlier this month, MicroStrategy hosted a virtual conference where Saylor shared his bitcoin corporate playbook and strategy with executives from more than 1,000 companies.
Elsewhere, more institutional investor names have entered the space, including SkyBridge Capital’s Anthony Scaramucci. In January, SkyBridge, which provides a conduit for the mass affluent and registered investment advisors (RIAs) to invest in the hard-to-reach asset class of hedge funds, launched its Bitcoin Fund L.P.
Scaramucci told Yahoo Finance Live that bitcoin could “easily trade” at $100,000 per coin in the next 12 months.
In December, legendary global macro trader Paul Tudor Jones told Yahoo Finance that bitcoin is on a “crazy rocket ship ride” and that it will be “substantially higher” in 20 years.
Mastercard said in a blog post last week that it was preparing to bring cryptocurrencies to its network, while BNY Mellon announced it would launch a Digital Assets unit to provide custody and administration to service the “growing client demand for digital assets,” making it the first global bank to announce such a service.
Julia La Roche is a correspondent for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.