SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Bitcoin jumped more than 10% on Monday to a record high after Tesla said it had invested $1.5 billion in the most popular cryptocurrency last month.
The news sent Bitcoin soaring as high as $43,707 as of 1517 GMT. Smaller cryptocurrencies including ethereum and XRP that tend to move in tandem with bitcoin also jumped, rising as much as 5% and 4% respectively.
The electric carmaker unveiled the investment ten days after its chief executive Elon Musk drove up the cryptocurrency’s price by adding a “#bitcoin” tag on his Twitter profile page.
Musk removed the tag from his Twitter bio a few days later but has continued talking up bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, in particular, dogecoin, to his 46 million Twitter followers.
In December, he had mooted the possibility of converting “large transactions” of Tesla’s balance sheet into bitcoin.
Bitcoin is up almost 50% this year following gains of over 300% in 2020.
(Esta Media Network/Reuters)
