(Reuters) – Bitcoin, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency, on Saturday crossed a record high of $60,000.
Bitcoin has risen sharply this year, broadly outperforming conventional asset classes, partly due to broader acceptance as a form of payment.
In recent weeks, companies have taken advantage of its strength to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, capitalizing on improved market sentiment.
A $1.5 billion bitcoin bet last month by Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Inc saw Elon Musk’s electric car company join business software firm MicroStrategy Inc and Twitter boss Jack Dorsey’s payments company Square Inc (NYSE:SQ) in swapping some traditional cash reserves for the digital coin.
Coinbase, the biggest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, filed last month for a Nasdaq listing. Regulatory approval would represent a landmark victory for cryptocurrency advocates seeking mainstream endorsement.
Amid rising customer demand to own and invest in bitcoin, Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS). said this week that it is exploring how to serve those clients while remaining on the right side of regulation. It recently restarted a cryptocurrency trading desk and this month it started dealing bitcoin futures and non-deliverable forwards.
