(Reuters) -Bitcoin rose above $ 60,000 to hit record highs over the weekend, coming out of a two-week range and driven by the talk of restricted supplies against evidence of wider adoption.
The largest and best-known cryptocurrency in the world hit $ 61,222.22 on Saturday, the highest in nearly a month. It was slightly below $ 59,907 at 05.00 GMT on Sunday.
Bitcoin (BTC) has risen 116% from a low of $ 27,734 a year on January 4th. It surpassed the $ 60,000 mark for the first time on March 13, with a record $ 61,781.83 on the Bitstamp exchange, just after U.S. President Joe Biden signed his $ 1.9 trillion . package of fiscal stimuli to the law.
Justin d’Anethan, sales manager for digital asset company Diginex in Hong Kong, said investors had focused their attention on the stock markets and other cryptocurrencies in the past two weeks, leaving Bitcoin idle at higher levels at $ 50,000.
“That changed yesterday when we drilled the 60K. With the miners not selling coins minted recently, the reserves in exchange for multi-year minimums and an incessant flow of companies, funds, large and small investors crowding into BTC, we overlooked, ”he said.
Bitcoin’s impressive gains this year have been motivated by its widespread acceptance as an investment and means of payment, accompanied by the rush of retail cash in stocks, publicly traded funds and other risky assets.
It skyrocketed this year when major companies such as BNY Mellon, asset manager BlackRock Inc, credit card giant Mastercard Inc, backed cryptocurrencies, while those like Tesla Inc Square Inc and MicroStrategy Inc invested in bitcoin.
Large U.S. banks like Morgan Stanley are also looking to offer wealth management clients access to bitcoin funds.
Reports of Aakriti Bhalla in Bengaluru and Vidya Ranganathan in Singapore; Edited by William Mallard