Bitcoin rose above $34,000 on Sunday (Jan. 3), after crossing the $30,000 milestone for the first time ever the day before.
It hit $34,544.94 Sunday morning, CoinDesk reported, before declining slightly, sitting at $32,854.16 as of 7:09 pm ET.
The “digital gold” saw gains of over 300 percent throughout the year of 2020, according to CoinDesk, seeing particular growth in December, where it climbed about $10,000 after rising above $19,000 for the first time on Nov. 30.
“Bitcoin makes TSLA [Tesla] look like it is standing still,” tweeted Jim Bianco, well-known macro strategist, when the cryptocurrency broke $30,000.
Three days into 2021, the digital currency can already claim growth of about $5,000 for the new year.
Cryptocurrency’s recent push into the mainstream has propelled bitcoin’s growth, marked both in adoption by major FinTech players, such as PayPal and Square, and investor type.
“The number of family offices asking to invest in our ETP is just staggering,” 21Shares Managing Director Laurent Kssis told CoinDesk. “I've never seen this before. In 2017 it was just retail knocking at the door — now it's only institutional."
Economic and political uncertainty on a global level — along with the unabating pandemic — have also most likely pushed bitcoin forward, CoinDesk reported.
“Many corporations are parking USD in BTC because they are losing money in conventional banking, so it makes total sense,” said Kssis.
In other news, Florida Rep. Darren Soto (D) proposed a bill on Thursday (Dec. 31) to create a new office to coordinate blockchain technology with the Federal Government.
The bill, H.R.9067, which was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, suggested the office operate within the Department of Commerce with the purpose of coordinating “all non-defense related deployment and activities related to blockchain technology within the Federal Government.”
Further details regarding the proposal have not been released yet, but Soto has been notably in favor of utilizing cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, Cointelegraph reported.
In September, he and the other members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce released the Digital Taxonomy Act to study the applicability of blockchain technology in government. As Cointelegraph noted, a dedicated blockchain technology office within the Commerce Department would help facilitate its adoption.
