The leading cryptocurrency bitcoin’s price reached a new record on Sunday, rising above $49,000 for the first time. Bitcoin reached about $49,694 earlier in the day before paring gains to around $47,000 at the time of writing. It’s now up almost 70% so far this year. Rival cryptocurrency Ether hit a record on Saturday and is up about 150% year-to-date. Bitcoin is still up around 4% over the past 24 hours, as the leading cryptocurrency continues to get mainstream exposure. 

Bitcoin has soared 50% so far this month.

This year has been a great year for bitcoin as the price of the leading cryptocurrency broke above its all-time high day after day. The massive winning rally of bitcoin attracted a lot of mainstream attention this year from different industries. Several factors played a role in the massive rally of bitcoin, but the main one is increased interest from big institutions. As cryptocurrency hits new highs, investors are pouring money into it, and consumer companies are embracing it as well. 

Bitcoin nears $50,000 as it attracts more institutional investments. 

A week after Tesla said it bought $1.5 billion in bitcoin, the electronic asset continues to attract players in traditional finance, including Mastercard, who said it would start allowing cardholders to transact in certain cryptocurrencies on its network, and Morgan Stanley, whose $150 billion investment arm is proposing to bet on the cryptocurrency. Elon Musk-led Tesla said it was placing some of its cash reserves in bitcoin rather than dollars and other currencies. Last month, BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, added bitcoin as a viable form of investment to two funds. As reported earlier, Jack Dorsey and Jay Z launched a bitcoin trust for developers in India and Africa.