The price of the virtual cryptocurrency Bitcoin is shown on the phone screen in this photo.
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The price of Bitcoin bounced back on Wednesday after strong sales, which rose again above $ 50,000 as Square announced it had bought the $ 170 million cryptocurrency.
At 4 a.m. ET, the world’s most valuable digital currency rose 7.5% to a price of $ 50,683, according to Coin Metrics data. The cryptocurrency rose to $ 51,369 a few hours earlier.
Other cryptocurrencies also rose, with ether and XRP rising 11.3% and 7.4% respectively. The so-called altcoins or alternative cryptocurrencies, often increase in strength times for bitcoin.
On Tuesday, Square announced it had bought 3,318 bitcoins at an average price of about $ 51,235. The fintech company, led by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, said Bitcoin now accounts for about 5% of its total assets.
It’s not the first time Square has invested in bitcoin – the firm bought the $ 50 million digital currency last year. Dorsey is one of the best-known proponents of Bitcoin, having said he believes it will eventually become the “single currency” of the Internet.
Bitcoin had a rough start to the week, going from a record high of $ 58,356 on Sunday to as low as $ 45,501 on Tuesday. It’s no wonder bitcoin suffers from wild volatility – digital testimony rose infamously to nearly $ 20,000 in 2017 before entering the bear market the following year.
Bitcoin continues to rise by more than 70% to date and by more than 400% in the last 12 months. The impressive rally of cryptographic assets has caught everyone’s attention, from Tesla CEO Elon Musk to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Earlier this week, Yellen called Bitcoin an “extremely inefficient” means of payment and warned of its use in illicit activities.
“It’s a very speculative asset and … I think people should be aware that it can be extremely volatile,” the former Federal Reserve chairman told a New York Times DealBook conference. “I am concerned about the potential losses that investors may suffer.”
Musk, meanwhile, has come out believing in bitcoin. His electric vehicle company has recently invested $ 1.5 billion in corporate cash in cryptocurrency, and billionaire tech entrepreneur said he believes he could be “on the verge of gaining widespread acceptance” among financial services companies. conventional.
But even Musk has suggested that current Bitcoin price levels could be unsustainable, tweeting over the weekend that he believes bitcoin and ether prices of rival tokens “seem high.”