New York, USA (CNN) – The value of Bitcoin surpassed $ 50,000 on Tuesday, continuing its stunning rise that pushed it up nearly $ 20,000 this year.
The digital currency reached a record level of 50602.53 dollars before retreating slightly. Bitcoin is still up about 2% in the past 24 hours, and has risen about 260% since the start of November.
Investors have pushed Bitcoin prices skyrocketing during the pandemic, while the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to near zero in March 2020 – and is expected to keep them that way for several more years – drastically weakening the US dollar.
This has made Bitcoin a relatively attractive currency, as there is a certain limit to the number of Bitcoins in the world, and investors believe that once the supply runs out, the value of the digital currency will rise.
As Bitcoin rose to an all-time high, large brand-owned investors are storing it, for huge consumer companies to adopt, which in turn helped its value rise.
Tesla, the most valuable car company in the stock market, announced last week that it may soon accept the digital currency as payment for its cars, adding that it is keeping some of its cash in bitcoin instead of the traditional currency.
Mastercard also recently announced that it will support “specific digital currencies” directly on its network later this year. This represents a major milestone for Bitcoin, as “Square” and “PayPal” recently began allowing customers to trade Bitcoin, but “MasterCard” will be the main and most popular Bitcoin platform to date.
Bitcoin’s value crossed the $ 20,000 mark for the first time in December, and its value has more than doubled in 3 months.
