Elon Musk, founder and chief engineer of SpaceX, speaks during the Satellite 2020 conference in Washington, DC, USA on March 9, 2020.
Yasin Ozturk | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, said Saturday that bitcoin prices “look high” after the cryptocurrency rose to another record this week.
The price of bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, topped an important milestone on Friday after the market value reached more than a trillion dollars, leaving some major sponsors surprised. Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency, also reached all-time highs.
“Money is just data that allows us to avoid the hassle of barter,” tweeted Musk, one of the leading proponents of digital currencies. “This data, like all data, is subject to latency and error. The system will evolve to the point of minimizing both.”
In a subsequent post, Musk added, “that said BTC and ETH look great lol,” in response to a user who said gold was better than bitcoin and cash.
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 gained about 350% over the last six months.
Ethereum also hit a record $ 2,040.62 for a weekly gain of approximately 12%. It was trading at $ 1,996 on Saturday.
The rise in bitcoins was driven in part by increased adoption by large investors and companies. Bank of New York Mellon said this month that it was moving into space.
Tesla also turned part of its balance sheet cash into bitcoins earlier this year and said it would begin accepting digital currency as payment, a move that sparked even more interest in the currency.
– CNBC’s Jesse Pound contributed the information