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The world’s largest cryptocurrency has continued to rally, passing the $64,000 level for the first time in history ahead of the highly anticipated stock market debut of popular trading platform Coinbase.
The price of bitcoin rose more than 6% on Wednesday to reach $64,829, a new record high. The new milestone comes less than 24 hours after it broke past $63,000. The cryptocurrency has more than doubled its value since the beginning of the year, and has already hit $1.2 trillion market capitalization.
Most of the top 10 cryptocurrencies followed bitcoin’s rally. Ethereum also hit an all-time high for the second time in two days, reaching $2,388 on Wednesday.
The records were set ahead of the initial public offering (IPO) of one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Coinbase, on Nasdaq. The listing is considered by some as another sign of the wider mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies.
“A successful addition to Nasdaq should act as endorsement of cryptocurrencies by traditional investors,” senior analyst at Swissquote Ipek Ozkardeskaya wrote, as cited by Bloomberg. The analyst also noted that Coinbase’s appearance on Wall Street marks “the first official juncture between the traditional financial avenue and the alternative crypto path.”
Coinbase is the second-largest crypto platform in the world after Binance, and the largest in the US by trading volume. Its client base has significantly expanded in recent months due to growing interest in cryptos, pushing its first quarter revenue to a whopping $1.8 billion.
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