Bitcoin is skyrocketing once again
Remember Bitcoin?
Following a long and punishing crypto winter, and despite the damaging trials and tribulations of fallen crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried, Bitcoin is on a red-hot run.
Since January, the price of Bitcoin has doubled, leaping from $US16,500 ($26,000) just after the New Year to $US34,600 today.
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Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies including Ethereum have suddenly rocketed. REUTERS / Dado Ruvic
Bitcoin has not sat at this level since April 2022, when the coin started sliding from an all-time high of over $68,000 in late 2021.
Josh Gilbert, a market analyst at trading platform eToro, said Bitcoin was proving to be the "best-performing asset class" this year.
He said a recent trading survey by his company showed investors were bullish on cryptocurrencies out of all assets for the fourth quarter.
"Bitcoin (has) continued to defy critics," he said, comparing it against the sell-off and "sea of red for global stocks" last week.
The value of crypto assets has surged since August when a US court cleared a path for the nation's first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund.
The ruling was a breakthrough moment for crypto investors and a setback for the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has been trying to rein in the digital asset industry.
The ruling opens the door to an investment product that investors have been demanding for years.
A spot Bitcoin ETF would allow traditional investors to have exposure to the digital asset without actually owning it.
Bitcoin's change in fortunes comes after it spent a year in decline.
Dipping market sentiment wasn't helped by the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, and the fraud charges for founder Bankman-Fried.
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Sam Bankman-Fried is a onetime crypto billionaire who is accused of orchestrating a multibillion-dollar fraud. Amr Alfiky / Reuters
Bankman-Fried, 31, has pleaded not guilty to seven federal counts that could land him in prison for the rest of his life.
The one-time crypto mogul is accused of stealing billions of dollars in deposits from customers of his FTX crypto exchange.
Prosecutors claim he diverted those funds to buy luxury real estate and backstop losses at his other firm, a crypto trading house called Alameda Research.
- Reported with CNN
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