Bitcoin, the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency, recently soared past $70,000 for the first time in its 15-year history.
The digital currency almost reached this milestone late on Friday, narrowly missing the $70,000 mark by a small margin. However, following a wave of profit-taking that drove its price down, Bitcoin’s value picked up over the weekend.
At the time of writing, BTC/USD is trading at approximately $71,327.22. This represents a significant increase of 66% since the beginning of the year and an impressive 240% rise compared to the same period last year, driven largely by the excitement surrounding exchange-traded funds (ETFs) related to Bitcoin.
According to data from Bloomberg, Bitcoin ETFs, which received the green light from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on January 10th, now account for over $56 billion of the total Bitcoin in circulation. This figure represents about 4% of all Bitcoin currently available.
Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH) is on the verge of breaking the $4,000 barrier for the first time, with the ETH/USD pair trading near $3,980.
The overall market capitalization of cryptocurrencies worldwide currently stands at around $2.65 trillion. Of this, Bitcoin’s market capitalization makes up 53.8%, indicating its dominant position in the market.
The Bitcoin price is $71,327.22, a change of 2.56% over the past 24 hours as of 8:04 a.m.
