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Bitcoin hovered near record highs on Friday, and is heading for gains of more than 20% in a historic week during which it saw the support of large companies like Elon Musk’s Tesla, while the weak US labor market continued to put pressure on the dollar.
The most popular cryptocurrency in the world was down in the latest transactions 1.1% to 47,451 dollars, just below the record high of 49 thousand dollars which it reached after the American banking group BNY Mellon said it had set up a unit to help customers keep and transfer Issuing digital assets.
Tesla revealed that it had purchased $1.5 billion worth of digital currency and added BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, in Bitcoin as an investment available for two funds.
Credit card giant Mastercard intends to provide support for some cryptocurrencies, boosting Bitcoin ambition to enter the regular financing path, but many banks are reluctant to do business with them.
On the other hand, the dollar is heading towards its first weekly loss in three weeks in light of indications of the weakness of the US job market, which negatively affects outlook on the pace of the economy’s recovery from the pandemic.
In early European trade, the dollar index rose 0.15% to 90.55 after weak volumes in Asia due to the Lunar New Year. The index is heading towards a 0.5% decline for the week.
The dollar rose slightly against the yen, to 104.940.
The euro fell 0.17% to $ 1.2115, to consolidate for the third day near that level as it heads towards a gain of 0.5% for the week.
The single currency stabilized against the pound sterling at 0.876 after official data showed that Britain’s economy, hit by the Coronavirus pandemic, fell 9.9% in 2020, the largest annual collapse in more than 300 years, but avoided a return to recession at the end of last year.
The Norwegian krone rose slightly and trimmed some of the losses it incurred against the euro after data showed that the country’s economy shrank 2.5% in the past year, a decline less sharply compared with most European countries.
It last traded at 10.2940, down 0.1% against the euro.
