Crypto Market Update: Bitcoin Flirts With $40,000 Level Again, XRP Sits Out Rally

Bitcoin (BTC) briefly crossed the $40,000 mark on Thursday after having retreated to near $30,000-levels this week.

The apex cryptocurrency had hit an all-time high of $41,962.36 last weekend.

At press time, Bitcoin traded 3.88% higher at $38,918.37.

Ethereum (ETH), the cryptocurrency with the second-largest market cap, was up 8.75% at $1,219.67 at press time.

XRP (XRP), which was outperforming Bitcoin earlier this week on news of a former Amazon.com Inc. AMZN executive joining Ripple Inc — the payments company behind the cryptocurrency — has since retreated on news of Grayscale moving to dissolve its XRP Trust.

XRP traded 3.48% lower at $0.2967.

Polkadot (DOT), an enabler of communication between blockchains, has entered the top five cryptocurrencies by market up, with a $13.28 billion valuation. The cryptocurrency traded at $14.38, up 34.3% over 24-hours and 52.36% over seven days.

Among major news, Grayscale reported raising $3.2 billion investments into its cryptocurrency investment products in the fourth-quarter, with the fastest growth registered in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust GBTC.

Grayscale, overall, registered a $5.7 billion investment in its cryptocurrency products in 2020, which it said was four times higher than the $1.2 billion inflow it saw between 2013 and 2019.