The cryptocurrency market capitalization has hit a new peak of $2 trillion as of Monday (April 5), with numbers from CoinGecko and Blockfolio reporting strong gains as institutional and retail investors pile on, Reuters reported. The crypto market was sitting at $2.02 trillion as of Monday afternoon.
Bitcoin was leading the way as it had a market cap of $1 trillion this week, last up 1.4 percent at $59,045. The crypto has been trading in a somewhat narrow range since hitting a high of $61,000 in March, according to Reuters. So long as bitcoin stays above the $53,000 range, analysts say it should be able to keep up its $1 trillion market cap.
Ethereum was second behind bitcoin, Reuters reported, with the numbers up 1.3 percent at $2,103 and with a market cap of $244 billion on Monday.
Bitcoin has risen over 100 percent this year, and ethereum has gained almost 190 percent. Both of them have outperformed traditional asset classes, a performance which comes with the rise of mainstream companies buying into the crypto world, Reuters reported.
“Momentum and interest have begun to expand beyond bitcoin and ethereum,” said Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer at crypto exchange Bitfinex, according to Reuters.
He added that as the industry continues to mature, “we expect more blockchain-based applications to be introduced to the world, and coinciding with that, a surge of interest around other alternative assets… as they become more market-ready,” Reuters reported.
In other news, MicroStrategy has purchased 253 bitcoins for the price of $15 million in cash, a report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The average price was $59,339 per bitcoin, including fees and expenses.
As of Monday, MicroStrategy now holds around 91,579 bitcoins that had been acquired at aggregate prices of $2.226 billion, with an average purchase price of around $24,311 per bitcoin, the report stated.
MicroStrategy has been a major bitcoin backer and was reported in March to have bought 328 bitcoins for $15 million, according to PYMNTS. MicroStrategy is the world’s largest publicly traded business intelligence company.
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