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The price of the Bitcoin virtual crypto currency is displayed on a phone screen in this photo.
STR | NurPhoto | Getty Images
Bitcoin’s price rebounded on Wednesday after a sell-off, climbing again above $ 50,000 as Square announced that it had bought $ 170 million worth of cryptocurrency.
At 4 a.m. ET, the world’s most valuable digital coin jumped 7.5% to a price of $ 50,683, according to data from Coin Metrics. The cryptocurrency surged to $ 51,369 hours earlier.
Other cryptocurrencies also received a boost, with Ether and XRP climbing 11.3% and 7.4% respectively. So-called altcoins, or alternative cryptocurrencies, often climb in times of strength for bitcoin.
On Tuesday, Square announced that it had purchased 3,318 bitcoins at an average price of around $ 51,235. The fintech company, led by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, said bitcoin now accounts for around 5% of its total assets.
This isn’t the first time Square has invested in bitcoin – the company bought $ 50 million worth of digital currency last year. Dorsey is one of bitcoin’s best-known proponents, having once said he believed it would eventually become the internet’s “single currency”.
Bitcoin had a rough start to the week, rising from a record high of $ 58,356 on Sunday to $ 45,501 on Tuesday. It’s not unusual for bitcoin to experience fierce bouts of volatility – the digital token soared to nearly $ 20,000 in 2017 before entering a bear market the following year.
Bitcoin is still up over 70% since the start of the year and over 400% over the past 12 months. The astonishing rally in crypto assets has caught the attention of everyone from Tesla CEO Elon Musk to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Earlier this week, Yellen called bitcoin a “hugely inefficient” payment method and warned against its use in illicit activities.
“It’s 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 incur.”
Musk, meanwhile, has become a supporter of bitcoin. His electric car business recently invested $ 1.5 billion in cash in cryptocurrency, and the billionaire tech entrepreneur said he believes it may be “on the verge of widespread acceptance.” by conventional financial services firms.
But even Musk has suggested that current bitcoin price levels may be unsustainable, tweeting over the weekend that he thinks bitcoin and rival token ether prices “look high.”
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