Ether, the world’s second-largest digital currency, hit a record high on Thursday.
The price of ether hit $1,918.52 during morning trade in Asia but has since pared some gains, according to CoinDesk data.
The rally in bitcoin, which surpassed $52,000 for the first time on Wednesday, is helping to push up ether as well.
Grayscale kicked off last year with $2 billion in assets under management and ended with more than $20.2 billion, driven by demand from institutional investors such as hedge funds, endowments and pension funds.
Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust became a popular, publicly traded way for investors to get exposure to cryptocurrency without owning the coins themselves.
“There’s no longer professional risk of investing in the digital currency asset class — there’s probably more career risk in not paying attention to it,” said CEO Michael Sonnenshein.
The price of bitcoin has climbed past $19,000 as the cryptocurrency’s 2020 surge continues.
It was trading about 4.25% higher on Tuesday morning at $19,207, according to data from industry site CoinDesk.
It is now creeping up toward the all-time high of $19,783 posted in a December 2017.
Bitcoin was last trading almost 9% higher at a price of $15,233, according to data from industry website CoinDesk.
The world’s best-known cryptocurrency has been on a tear in 2020, more than doubling in value year-to-date.
Some analysts have linked its rise to unprecedented stimulus from global governments and central banks.
Thousands of bitcoins — worth $1 billion — were seized by law enforcement this week in what the Justice Department said was the largest seizure of cryptocurrency in the history of agency.
The cryptocurrency is linked to sales of illicit drugs and goods on Silk Road, a dark web marketplace that shut down in 2013.
“Silk Road was the most notorious online criminal marketplace of its day,” says U.S. Attorney David Anderson of the Northern District of California. “The successful prosecution of Silk Road’s founder in 2015 left open a billion-dollar question. Where did the money go?”
The start-up, launched in 2013 with a free-trading model, has been mimicked by incumbent brokerage firms including Charles Schwab, Fidelity and TD Ameritrade.
Retail brokers are seeing record new account openings this year despite the pandemic.
In May, Robinhood brought in $280 million of fresh capital, boosting its valuation to $8.3 billion, even after its trading technology stumbled badly during the coronavirus crash.
XRP, the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has lost a further 10.14% in the last day to fall back to just $0.273.
Today marks the third consecutive day of losses for the cryptocurrency, which fell from a 2020 peak of over $0.343 down to its current value—equivalent to a loss of almost 19% in less than three days.
Anonymous bitcoiners are taking the search for a coronavirus vaccine into their own hands, bypassing academia, pharmaceutical companies and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The price action over the past few days has undoubtedly been positive for Bitcoin. After bottoming at $8,180 on the day of the block reward halving, the cryptocurrency has shot higher, approaching $9,900 just hours ago.With the price now consolidating around $9,800, analysts are hopeful that BTC will break past $10,000.
During the last few years, blockchain surveillance has increased a great deal and in the early days around 2013-14, there were only a handful of firms. Now there are more than 20 blockchain analysis companies that monitor addresses, transactions, and making sure addresses are AML/CFT compliant as well.
