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- The cryptocurrency market value surpassed $ 1 trillion on Thursday, after Bitcoin hit a record high above $ 37,000.
- The entire crypto market is now worth about half of what Apple is and more than the entire Swiss economy.
- Rival Ethereum token hit its highest level in two years, above $ 1,200, while smaller altcoins, including XRP, also rose.
- Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
The cryptocurrency market is now worth more than $ 1 trillion for the first time after the price of bitcoin jumped 6.7% on Thursday, to a record high of $ 38,357.66.
Bitcoin, which has risen nearly 400% in the past 12 months, has garnered immense investor interest in recent weeks.
The driving forces behind the rally are investors’ desire to seek out a decentralized, non-central bank-linked alternative asset, whose shares can devalue a traditional currency, as the US dollar did with the Federal Reserve’s zero. – interest rate policy and billions of dollars in stimulus over the past year.
“With buying interest continuing to drive the market, any reverse sell-off will be seen as another opportunity to enter a market that is currently pushing higher and higher,” said Nick Cawley, DailyFX strategist.
“As always with the crypto space, you have to be careful, especially with volatility at its current extreme level,” he added.
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With a market cap of over $ 1 trillion, cryptocurrencies are now worth almost half that of Apple, the world’s most valuable company. They are also more valuable than the entire Swiss economy – home to some of the world’s largest financial institutions and the largest gold coffers.
“Bitcoin continued to tear apart trees, metaphorically speaking, hitting a new high,” CMC Markets chief strategist Michael Hewson said in a daily note.
Greater transparency brought about by regulation and the growing depth of the market have helped cryptocurrencies shed some of their old reputation as an asset class plagued by speculation, questionable market practices and to fraud.
Renowned investors such as Paul Tudor Jones, Mike Novogratz, Anthony Scaramucci threw their weight behind Bitcoin and even crypto-skeptic Ray Dalio said it was “interesting”. Payment companies like PayPal and Square allow their users to exchange cryptocurrencies, and a growing number of fintechs beyond the United States are seeing increasing customer interest.
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JPMorgan said on Monday that Bitcoin could potentially trade up to $ 146,000 if investors embrace it as an alternative safe haven to gold, although he added that such a rally might not be sustainable.
Bitcoin is already the largest and most widely used cryptocurrency by market cap, with a current value of nearly $ 700 billion. Then there’s Ethereum, which has gained 800% in value over the past year to hit a two-year high of $ 1,228 on Thursday on the Coinbase platform. Its market capitalization is approximately $ 138 billion.
Ripple Labs’ XRP has seen more mixed fortunes recently. US regulators recently filed a lawsuit against Ripple on the grounds that sales of its XRP token were not legitimate because they viewed the coin as a security and not a cryptocurrency.
Having more than doubled in value in one week at the end of November, XRP lost almost half of its value a month later. Since the beginning of the month, the token has again doubled in value. XRP was last up nearly 30% on the day to around $ 0.328 on the Bitstamp exchange.
Smaller tokens, known as alt-coins, rode the Bitcoin and Ethereum rally coattails last year. Litecoin and Cardano, and so-called stablecoins – those backed by traditional currencies – such as Tether have also seen their value skyrocket.
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