Bitcoin maintained steady on Tuesday, barely below its all-time high set a day earlier, with the original cryptocurrency up 27 percent since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
On Monday evening, bitcoin reached $48,234 for the first time since December 31. It was the last trading at $47,553, up 0.9 percent.
Smaller cryptocurrencies that tend to move in lockstep with bitcoin benefited from its rise. On Monday, Ether, the second most valuable coin, reached $3,436 for the first time since early January.
Market participants noted signals of a new wave of crypto adoption by institutional investors and financial organizations, whose interest has fueled crypto’s path from a niche technology to mainstream assets over the previous two years.
Bitcoin has gained more than 12% in the last week alone.
The chief executive of BlackRock Inc. (BLK.N) was quoted as saying last week that the Russia-Ukraine conflict could hasten the adoption of digital currencies as a means of settling international transactions.
According to Noelle Acheson, head of market research at U.S. crypto business Genesis, such moves reflect “increasing conviction that the crypto markets are worth investing greater resources to.”
Despite the fact that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are now mentioned in the same sentence as traditional assets such as stocks, foreign currency, and bonds, they are still extremely volatile. In November, Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $69,000 before plummeting over 30% in just 24 days.
