Cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin Reaches New Record High

Summary Bitcoin's closing price reached a new record high this week, crossing $124,000 for the first time in ￰0￱ is now up ~29% year-to-date. Ether's closing price rose more than 10% this week, hitting its highest level in three ￰1￱ is now up ~33% year-to-date and is ~8% below its record close from August ￰2￱ Jennifer Nash This weekly update tracks some of the largest cryptocurrencies by market share: bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) and ether ( ETH-USD ). While both are considered to be high-risk when it comes to investing, the two have foundational differences that investors should know . We've also included XRP ( XRP-USD ), as it was one of the largest cryptocurrencies when this series ￰3￱ to Wikipedia , a cryptocurrency is "a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses cryptography to secure its transactions, to control the creation of additional units, and to verify the transfer of assets." Bitcoin Bitcoin was the world's first cryptocurrency and decentralized digital ￰4￱ first bitcoin transaction occurred in early 2009 and has since grown worldwide to a mainstream financial ￰5￱ is often considered volatile, as seen in our first chart, but one can argue that it is also resilient .

Bitcoin's closing price reached a new record high this week, crossing $124,000 for the first time in ￰6￱ is now up ~29% ￰7￱ Ether is a cryptocurrency run on the Ethereum blockchain platform and was launched in July ￰8￱ has the second largest market share, despite being the newest of the three discussed in this article. Ether's closing price rose more than 10% this week, hitting its highest level in three ￰9￱ is now up ~33% year-to-date and is ~8% below its record close from August ￰10￱ XRP, which is owned by Ripple, was launched in 2012 and was one of the larger cryptocurrencies for some time until new coins joined the ￰11￱ ￰12￱ ￰13￱ An index has been created in order to chart these three cryptocurrencies together, considering their significantly different pricing histories.

A logarithmic scale is used on the y-axis of this chart to better illustrate the relative percentage changes and long-term growth of these cryptocurrencies, as opposed to their absolute price ￰14￱ chart tells us which cryptocurrency's price has changed the most since November 9, ￰15￱ one point or another, all three have been at the ￰16￱ the time of writing, bitcoin is in the ￰17￱ January 10th, 2024, the SEC approved spot bitcoin ETFs from a range of issuers such as Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF ( GBTC ), iShares Bitcoin Trust ( IBIT ), Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund ( FBTC ), ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF ( ARKB ), Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB), Coinshares Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund ( BRRR ).

Here are some of the quick takeaways from the spot bitcoin ETF ￰18￱ July 23rd, 2024, a handful of spot ether ETFs launched from a range of issuers such as Grayscale Ethereum Trust ( ETHE ) , Franklin Ethereum ETF ( EZET ), Bitwise Ethereum ETF ( ETHW ), iShares Ethereum Trust ( ETHA ), Fidelity Ethereum ETF ( FETH ). Original Post Editor's Note: The summary bullets for this article were chosen by Seeking Alpha editors.