World’s biggest cryptocurrency Bitcoin hit a new all-time high in an extended rally from Monday. The price of Bitcoin rose past $68,000 on Tuesday, surpassing its previous all-time high record. Bitcoin climbed $68,521 before falling a little below $68,000. According to data from CoinMetrics, the price of Bitcoin was up about 3 percent in the last 24 hours as of 4:30 a.m. ET.
On Monday, Ethereum’s native currency Ether hit a new record high of $4,740. On Tuesday, in an extended rally, the second-largest cryptocurrency has hit another milestone. It hit a new record high of $4,840 making it the first time ever to surpass $4,800. Ether traded about 2 percent higher in the last 24 hours at a price of $4,814, according to data from CoinMetrics.
The rally comes amid Ethereum’s upgrade called Altair. Ethereum’s rivals Solana and Cardano are up 21 percent and 16 percent respectively in the last seven days.
The recent events surrounding Bitcoin make $70,000 an achievable milestone for Bitcoin. The past few months have been challenging for Bitcoin as they were characterized by extreme price volatility among other things. A note sent by Mikkel Morch, Executive Director of ARK36, on Monday regarding Bitcoin and Ethereum’s rally said Bitcoin reaching the $70,000 milestone “seems imminent”.
Bitcoin could also be close to attaining the various predictions that have been about it. Analysts at Standard Chartered forecasted that the price of Bitcoin will more than double and hit a new all-time high of $100,000 by early next year and also predicted that Bitcoin could be worth as much as $175,000 on a long-term basis. The team also forecasted Ethereum reaching between $26,000 to $35,000 as Bitcoin becomes stable at $175,000. Analysts of JPMorgan recently made predictions about the price of Bitcoin. They predicted that Bitcoin would ultimately hit $146,000, with a shorter-term price target of $73,000 for this year.
The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF was up more than 8 percent on Monday during the rally. Launched in October, it keeps track of Bitcoin futures contracts attached to the future price of the cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin will be rolling out its biggest upgrade in the last four years next week. The software upgrade is called Taproot and will bring increased transaction privacy, efficiency and will unlock Bitcoin’s potential for smart contracts.
Bitcoin was trading for $67,771 while Ether was trading for $4,703 as of the time of drafting this article.
