Bitcoin Trades Above $40,000 for First Time Ever

Bitcoin continued its rising rally on Thursday, going above $40,000 for the first time ever, supported by a recent surge in demand especially from institutional investors.

This means that the market value of the world’s largest digital briefly exceeded $1 trillion today.

Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency in the world, has gained more than 30% since the beginning of the year, while its gains over the past 12 months amount to around 400%.

Bitcoin is currently trading around $39,000, rising by 9.83% over the past 24 hours, and extending its increase during the past seven days to around 34.5%, according to data by CoinMarketCap.

Bitcoin has recently recorded multiple new all-time highs, including today’s $40,188 level, and now more increases by the world’s largest cryptocurrency are expected.

Researchers at JPMorgan Chase expect Bitcoin could hit $146,000 in the near future, Dow Jones’s MarketWatch reported.

If the largest digital currency was to draw demand away from gold investors, new unprecedented highs could soon be seen.

Inflows of more than $3 billion into Bitcoin and more than $7 billion of outflows from gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) since mid-October support the expectation.

According to JPMorgan, Bitcoin is attracting 3.4 times more risk capital than gold.