Bitcoin value briefly reaches $70,000

The value of Bitcoin briefly reached a record high of $70,000 on March 8, 2024. This price rise is being attributed towards Bitcon's recent surge in popularity, as the cryptocurrency has been the subject of much attention from the international investment community. 

Bitcoin rose to as high as $70,105 before quickly dropping and was last trading at $68,317.72. This is a first-time record for Bitcoin, in a surge boosted by investor demand for new U.S. spot exchange-traded crypto products and expectations for global interest rates to fall. 

Billions of dollars have flowed into ETFs in the past few weeks, and the market is getting extra support from an outlook that includes an upgrade to the ethereum blockchain platform, home to the second-largest cryptocurrency ether, and a bitcoin "halving" event, which slows the flow of bitcoin minting, in April.

Still, some say it's hard to shake off the speculative nature of these assets. After hitting a record high on Tuesday, bitcoin sharply reversed course and fell more than 10% back below the $60,000 level.

Even institutional investors, who once shunned crypto due to its sharp, wild moves, have begun committing long-term money, which analysts say could help sustain the latest leg of this rally.

Net flows into the 10 largest U.S. spot bitcoin funds reached $2.2 billion in the week ended March 1, with more than $2 billion of that going into BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust, according to LSEG data.

Ether was last up 1.62% at $3,939.84. Crypto stocks were also up on Friday, with shares of Coinbase last higher at 8.2%, and crypto miners Riot Platforms and Marathon Digital up 5.1% and 9.6%, respectively.