Bitcoin hits record high, crosses $60,000 for the first time

New York: Bitcoin, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency, on Saturday crossed a record high of $60,000.

Bitcoin has risen sharply this year, broadly outperforming conventional asset classes, partly due to broader acceptance as a form of payment.

In recent weeks, companies have taken advantage of its strength to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, capitalizing on improved market sentiment.

A $1.5 billion bitcoin bet last month by Tesla Inc saw Elon Musk’s electric car company join business software firm MicroStrategy Inc and Twitter boss Jack Dorsey’s payments company Square Inc in swapping some traditional cash reserves for the digital coin.

Coinbase, the biggest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, filed last month for a Nasdaq listing. Regulatory approval would represent a landmark victory for cryptocurrency advocates seeking mainstream endorsement.

Amid rising customer demand to own and invest in bitcoin, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said this week that it is exploring how to serve those clients while remaining on the right side of regulation. It recently restarted a cryptocurrency trading desk and this month it started dealing bitcoin futures and non-deliverable forwards.