Crypto Market Back On The Upswing; Bitcoin Exceeds $39K

Following a sluggish six weeks that aligned with a worldwide stock sell-off last month, the value of the cryptocurrency market escalated above $100 billion in 24 hours with bitcoin leading the rally, CNBC reported on Monday (July 26), citing data from Coinmarketcap.com.

Bitcoin hit more than $39,000, a price the eCurrency hadn’t seen since the middle of June, when it dropped lower than $30,000. CoinDesk data showed that bitcoin was up close to 12 percent in the past 24 hours, CNBC reported. The bitcoin boost kicked up the prices of other cryptocurrencies, like ether, which was trading at $2,345, an 8.7 percent hike. 

Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey’s bitcoin-focused educational symposium — The B Word — was held on July 21 with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood and others. The initiative was intended to promote bitcoin awareness and adoption.

“The Chinese trading day has opened up, and the Elon/Jack/Cathie talk was super bullish,” Alex Brammer of Luxor Mining, a cryptocurrency pool built for advanced miners, told CNBC.

At The B-Word conference, Musk said during a panel that he owns the coin Ethereum, which helped push the price up over 10 percent to more than $2,000. Although Musk had stopped taking bitcoin for Tesla purchases in May, he’s now open to accepting the exchange once again, as the mining operations are largely changing over to a more renewable energy source.

Dorsey compared bitcoin to the internet’s “chance” for a “native currency” complete with resilience. He also called it “weird” but always “evolving” — similar to the beginning days of the web.  

Amazon is also mulling adding an eCurrency and blockchain professional to its payments staff. Research data from PYMNTS found that two-thirds of respondents holding cryptocurrencies bought them to make transactions. Some 53 percent made the buy due to fear of missing out (FOMO). Further, 59 percent of respondents who never held cryptocurrency are interested.