Bitcoin rose to $ 50,362 on Thursday as the broader crypto market continued its rally and briefly surpassed $ 50,000 on August 23, a level it has not seen since mid-May. At the same time, Ethereum surged 3% to $ 3,843, continuing strong gains following its upgrade early last month.
Other cryptocurrencies also soared, thereby pushing the total market cap 5% higher to $ 2.3 trillion. Cardano even hit a market value of $ 100 billion amid optimism about smart contracts. Solana and Polkadot also rose by 60% and 22% respectively over the past seven days.
The main reasons were the growing interest of institutional investors and accelerated development in areas such as decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
News also came that Twitter is planning to lay the foundation on allowing bitcoins to be used in its 'Tip Jar' feature. The legalization of Bitcoin in El Salvador will also take effect on September 7.
But not everyone thinks that the recent moves of cryptocurrencies are completely profitable. Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, strategist at JPMorgan said: "The previous phase of retail investors' mania into cryptocurrency markets was between the beginning of January and mid-May when the share of altcoins had risen from 13% to 37.6%. While far from the record high of 55% seen in January 2018, at 32.6%, the share of altcoins looks rather elevated by historical standards and, in our opinion, it is more likely to be a reflection of froth and retail investor 'mania' rather than a reflection of a structural uptrend."
