Bitcoin, Ether and XRP all traded higher Monday following a weekend rout that saw the world’s biggest cryptocurrency fall by as much as 15%, raising concerns that the 2021 cryptocurrency rally that has pushed bitcoin to successive records may be over.
Bitcoin was up 4% at $57,088, according to CoinDesk, rising from Sunday though still down from its recent all-time high of more than $64,000 reached last Wednesday. Ether was up 4.82% at $2,233.50, XRP was up 10.29% at $1.40 and Dogecoin, which more than doubled in value on Friday, was up 32.17% at 40 cents.
Bitcoin in particular has surged this year as investors big and small continue to pile into the cryptocurrency game amid expectations that digital currencies – whether they’re used to buy a cup of coffee or a Tesla or as a store of value – are here to stay.
Proponents of bitcoin point to the finite number of bitcoins in circulation – 21 million – as reason it is more of an asset class like gold – something that larger financial institutions like BNY Mellon (BK) – Get Report and companies like Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA) – Get Report are beginning to lean into.
They also point to last week’s stock market debut of the U.S.’s largest exchange for the tokens, Coinbase Global (COIN) – Get Report, which valued the company at more than $86 billion and stoked additional enthusiasm for all things crypto.
Naysayers, however, continue to question whether the likes of bitcoin, ether and other digital currencies are worth anything more than what someone else is willing to pay.
Regulatory concerns are also weighing on the price of cryptocurrencies. On Friday, turkey’s central bank said it would ban their use as a form of payment from April 30 and would prohibit companies that handle payments and electronic fund transfers from processing transactions involving crypto platforms.
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