Bitcoin was up as high as 6.4% on Thursday morning, spiking close to $38,000 before pulling back. Still, it’s unclear whether Elon Musk, a well-known Bitcoin holder and enthusiast, shares the market’s enthusiasm for this rally.
The total value of all outstanding Bitcoins crossed the $750 billion mark, surpassing the market capitalization of Tesla Inc. TSLA.
This surge comes on the back of growing optimism about the approval of a Bitcoin ETF by year-end.
As reported by Bloomberg, a short timeframe of eight days became available for the SEC to potentially issue approval orders, as suggested in a statement by Bloomberg Intelligence analysts James Seyffart and Eric Balchunas. They further expressed confidence in a 90% likelihood of approval by Jan. 10, 2024, even if approvals do not materialize this month.
The market capitalization of Bitcoin has more than doubled since the beginning of the year, rising from $320 billion to the current $735 billion, reaching levels last witnessed in May 2022.
Chart: Bitcoin’s Market Cap Soars To $740 Billion, Highest Since May 2022
Remarkably, only six U.S. companies presently boast a market capitalization greater than Bitcoin’s, indicating that the cryptocurrency now exceeds that of each of the 494 companies in the S&P 500
The market dominance of Bitcoin, which is determined by measuring its value as a percentage of the total cryptocurrency market, has now surpassed the 50% mark. This signifies that Bitcoin now accounts for over half of the entire cryptocurrency market’s value.
Since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin’s price has surged by 130%, outpaced only by NVIDIA Corp. NVDA (up 226%) and Meta Platforms Inc. META (up 166%) in the S&P 500’s company rankings based on year-to-date gains.
The crypto is on track for its fourth straight week of gains, representing its longest weekly winning streak since January 2023.
Bitcoin-related stocks such as Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. MARA, Riot Platforms Inc. RIOT and Coinbase Inc. COIN surged 18%, 13% and 10% respectively at the time of this writing.
Read now: Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest Teams Up With 21Shares To Launch Suite Of Crypto-Focused ETFs
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