Vikrant Shekhawat : Aug 23, 2021, 03:08 PM
New Delhi: Bitcoin broke back above $50,000 on Monday for the first time in three months as investors piled back into the cryptocurrency on bargain-buying. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, reached as high as $50,152.24, the highest since mid-May, up 2.5%.Bitcoin has recovered after trading in a range of about $30,000 to $40,000 for many weeks, after it plunged from a record near $65,000 in mid-April. Still, it’s up significantly in the past year.As per CoinDesk, Ether, the coin linked to ethereum blockchain and the second largest crypto, surged to $3,321. Dogecoin, on the other hand, was trading at $0.32, up 1%. Other digital coins like Stellar, Uniswap, XRP, Litecoin, Cardano also were trading with gains over the last 24 hours.The worldwide crypto adoption grew by 880% between June 2020 and July 2021, according to the 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index by blockchain data platform Chainalysis. India ranks second in terms of crypto adoption worldwide behind Vietnam, but ahead of countries such as the US, UK, and China, as per the report.Before the rebound over the past few weeks, the crypto sector had been weighed down by a crackdown in China and worries over the environmental impact of the energy needed to create coins and process transactions. Supportive comments from billionaire Elon Musk and Ark Investment Management LLC’s Cathie Wood had helped Bitcoin rally.In another news, PayPal Holdings Inc will allow customers in the UK to buy, sell and hold bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies starting this week. The roll-out, which marks the first international expansion of PayPal's cryptocurrencies services outside of the United States, could inspire further mainstream adoption of the new asset class, reported Reuters.The total market value of cryptocurrencies was at $2.17 trillion on Sunday, according to data from CoinGecko.com, up 1.1% in the past 24 hours. The overall value has been helped in the past seven days by the 18% rally in Cardano and Binance Coin’s 11% gain, while Dogecoin is up about 9% over the period and Solana 73%, CoinGecko pricing showed.