Bitcoin breached the key $50,000 level once again Thursday as the wider cryptocurrency market continued its rally amid increasing adoption.
The largest cryptocurrency rose as high as $50,363 on Thursday, having briefly surpassed $50,000 on Aug. 23 as well — a level it hadn’t hit since mid-May.
The two fundamental factors that are likely behind Bitcoin’s push are Twitter’s potential integration of the coin as a Tip Jar payment option, and the official launch of the cryptocurrency as a legal tender in El Salvador come Sept. 7. The Central American country of 6.4 million people will become the first nation in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender.
Read also: More institutional, state adoption to keep bitcoin on rally path
While analysts expect the $50,000 price point to hold, Bitcoin buyers are exercising more optimism for even a bigger price gain by year-end.
Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency that is rallying.
Ether, the second-largest crypto, rose as much as 3% to $3,843, continuing a strong run after its London upgrade early last month.
Other coins also gained, with the overall crypto market cap jumping 5% to $2.3 trillion, according to CoinGecko.com pricing. Number-three crypto Cardano is nearing a $100 billion market value amid optimism about smart contracts, and Solana and Polkadot are up about 60% and 22%, respectively, in the past seven days, CoinGecko showed.
Cryptocurrencies have surged this year amid increased institutional interest and acceleration of development in areas like decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
