Bitcoin is picking up momentum once again, reclaiming a record amid optimism that the largest digital token will achieve wider adoption.

The cryptocurrency climbed to as high as $59,473.16, bouncing back from a rout at the end of February following a previous peak set that month. Its benefiting from optimism in financial markets after President Joe Biden signed the $1.9 trillion pandemic-relief bill into law.

Bitcoins resilience is proving to be the stuff of legend," said Antoni Trenchev, managing partner and co-founder of Nexo in London, a crypto lender. Every correction is an opportunity to reset and restart the move upwards."

Bitcoin is up about 1,000% in the past year amid signs of increasing institutional interest as well as speculative demand. Advocates champion the cryptocurrency as a store of value akin to gold that can act as a hedge against inflation and a weaker dollar. Others argue that the rally is a giant stimulus-fueled bubble on track to burst like it did in the 2017-2018 boom-and-bust cycle.

Industry participants and some strategists point to wider take up as one reason why the current bull run is different.

Examples include Tesla Inc.s $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musks endorsements of the digital asset on social media. Billionaire investor Mike Novogratz, who runs Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd., has said that Bitcoin could reach $100,000 by the end of the year.

The announcement from the White House is very significant for risk assets in general, and crypto-assets specifically," said Simon Peters, an analyst at multi-asset investment platform eToro, adding that the floodgates" are now open in terms of new liquidity.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

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Bitcoin hits another record as largest token extends 2021 rally - Mint

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates provides insight into the causes of the energy crisis in Texas on Fox News Sunday.

While a surge of interests from forward-looking investors pushed the price of a single bitcoin beyond $57,000 as of Thursday, billionaire Bill Gates has concerns about the process required to produce the digital currency.

The process of bitcoin mining, or generating the digital currency by verifying transactions using powerful computers to solve ultra-complex mathematical equations, consumes a huge amount of electricity. In a recent interview with the New York Times, Gates argued the practice was exacerbating the effects of climate change.

BILL GATES SAYS ENDING COVID-19 PANDEMIC 'EASIER' THAN SOLVING CLIMATE CHANGE

Bitcoin uses more electricity per transaction than any other method known to mankind,Bill Gates said in the interview. Its not a great climate thing.

Once considered a fringe concept, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have gained mainstream acceptance in recent years, drawing interest from companies such as Facebook and Tesla. The price of bitcoin has surged more than 600% over the last 12 months, according to CoinBase.

A recent study by Cambridge University found that bitcoin consumes more electricity than the entire country of Argentina. The platforms carbon footprint is expected to rise as it gains popularity.

Gates, who published a book this year entitled How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, suggested he could change his outlook on cryptocurrencies if platforms embrace green energy practices.

If its green electricity and its not crowding out other uses, eventually, you know, maybe thats OK, Gates added.

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Climate concerns have done little to slow bitcoins momentum. The cryptocurrency recently surpassed a market capitalization of $1 trillion for the first time since its inception. Lawmakers are moving forward with efforts to regulate cryptocurrencies.

Retail investors wary of financial systems and institutions ingrained in the traditional economy have begun to embrace cryptocurrencies, former Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Christopher Giancarlo told FOX Business Network on Thursday.

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He argued the U.S. should take a leadership role in the adoption of digital currencies as global rivals such as China take similar steps.

The United States was the leader in the internet. The United States was the leader in the space program, and as a result of that, we had a leading role in setting the standards for those innovations, Giancarlo said. We need to lead in this innovation as well.

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Bill Gates is worried about Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies for this reason - Fox Business

At the end of January, the Texas-based firm Valkyrie Digital Assets filed an exchange-traded fund (ETF) registration for the Valkyrie Bitcoin Trust with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This month, the cryptocurrency investment manager announced it has filed a prospectus for an ETF with the SEC based on companies that hold the leading crypto asset bitcoin.

Bitcoin (BTC) has grown quite a lot in value in 2021 and two months ago, Valkyrie Digital Assets joined the rest of the companies aiming to launch a U.S.-based bitcoin ETF. The struggle to approve a bitcoin ETF in the United States has been real, but the recent approval of three Canadian ETFs gives people hope. Now according to a recent registration statement from Valkyrie Digital Assets, the company plans to launch another ETF based on companies that hold bitcoin (BTC) in their treasuries.

The ETF is quite similar to the filed prospectus with the SEC issued by the financial incumbent JP Morgan Chase, which is also a basket of firms exposed to bitcoin (BTC). However, Valkyries registration filing for the ETF does not name any firms it plans to list. The fund, if approved, will be called the Valkyrie Innovative Balance Sheet ETF.

The fund is an actively-managed exchange-traded fund that will invest principally in the securities of operating companies that have innovative balance sheets, which the Funds investment adviser, KKM Financial LLC (the Adviser), considers to be operating companies that directly or indirectly invest in, transact in, or otherwise have exposure to bitcoin or operate in the bitcoin ecosystem, the Valkyrie ETF filing notes.

Valkyrie says the company could also invest in bitcoin trading platforms, bitcoin miners, bitcoin custodians, digital wallet providers, companies that facilitate payments in bitcoin, and companies that provide other technology, equipment or services to companies operating in the bitcoin ecosystem.

Companies like Microstrategy that hold bitcoin (BTC) on their balance sheets could also be considered. The Valkyrie prospectus adds:

The fund may invest in companies that invest in or have any portion of their assets accounted for by direct bitcoin holdings. The fund may invest in companies of any market capitalization. As of the date of this prospectus, the fund expects to invest a significant portion (i.e. more than 25%) of its assets in securities of companies in the information technology sector.

The Valkyrie Innovative Balance Sheet ETF comes at a time when bitcoin (BTC) has touched another all-time price (ATH) reaching $61,782 per unit on March 13. Additionally, there are now 42 companies holding BTC in treasuries capturing around $82 billion in value. Of course, like most SEC prospectus filings the Valkyrie registration mentions the risk involved with bitcoin and blockchain exposure.

The technology supporting the bitcoin ecosystem is new. The risks associated with owning bitcoin or operating in the bitcoin ecosystem, therefore, may not be fully known until the ecosystem matures, Valkyries SEC filing notes.

What do you think about Valkyries latest ETF filing that invests in companies with exposure to bitcoin? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

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Bitcoin has seen unparalleled growth in early 2021, reaching highs of over $58,000, almost triple its peak of the 20172018 boom. We are entering an era where institutions are starting to turn to Bitcoin (BTC), as many countries worldwide have been printing unprecedented amounts of money to service mounting debt. And to make matters worse, they are also facing the risk of unmanageable inflation. This perfect storm of macro conditions means institutions like pension funds, hedge funds, as well as high-net-worth individuals with trillions of dollars in combined value are starting to pay attention and learn about Bitcoin for the first time.

Unlike the 2017 bull run, this current run is driven less by hype and more by Bitcoin being accepted in the traditional financial world as a scarce asset class. Enterprise and institutional adoption of crypto assets has been the driving theme of 2021, with Tesla investing $1.5 billion in Bitcoin, one of the most prominent examples of corporate adoption to date.

Related: Tesla, Bitcoin and the crypto space: The show Musk go on? Experts answer

Additionally, large institutions are recognizing the importance of Bitcoin as a store of value, with many adding millions of dollars of the asset to their balance sheets, including Goldman Sachs, Standard Chartered, Square, BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, MicroStrategy and more.

Related: Will PayPals crypto integration bring crypto to the masses? Experts answer

But the crypto landscape needs to change to truly allow Bitcoin to move into the traditional world. Institutions cant use private keys that can easily be lost, transact with long strings of letters and numbers, or store funds on exchanges with high counterparty risk.

New crypto regulation in the U.S. is making it easier and more acceptable to hold cryptocurrencies by providing more certainty across jurisdictions. Just last month in the U.S., The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency provided much-needed regulatory certainty regarding crypto activities. Brian Brooks, acting comptroller of the currency, stated that access to blockchains, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, the holding of coins from these rails directly or on behalf of clients, and the running of nodes for a public blockchain is permitted. In other words, this allows banks to get actively involved a huge step in the direction of improving the comfort level of institutions interested in holding crypto.

We are also seeing more developments in terms of the custody and management of digital assets, which allows even more institutional and corporate players to enter the space. Goldman Sachs recently issued a request for information to explore the banks digital asset custody plans, part of a broader strategy in entering the stablecoin market. While the details arent yet firm, these seismic moves by key institutions are fueling the fire.

While these institutions have huge teams to manage and oversee their new crypto holdings, smaller companies have also started to experiment with adding Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to their balance sheet. As companies, big and small, start to hold crypto, it is becoming increasingly clear that the next generation of companies will act more like investors holding and balancing funds in multiple asset classes.

This includes companies for which crypto and blockchain is not their core business, reshaping businesses very value proposition: Everyone is now a fund whose returns may be decoupled from their core business offering. Small companies that may have only been holding cash are now investors concerned about their liquidity. In the emerging world of decentralized finance, the skys the limit to how complex asset management can become; you can buy and sell derivative products, engage in lending and much more.

Related: Where does the future of DeFi belong: Ethereum or Bitcoin? Experts answer

I envision a future where all companies hold crypto on their balance sheet, and every company is an investor, whether that is their core business offering or not. But this future is dependent on both user experience and regulation. Some companies and institutions holding crypto are willing to take risks by figuring out their own operational and financial security measures to manage their crypto, while for others, this is a non-starter. The traditional world will require custody solutions, a traditional UX for transactions, crypto wealth management and more.

For smaller companies starting to dip their toes into holding crypto, my advice is to keep it simple without getting too distracted by all the crypto volatility and noise. The current crypto rally brings great excitement and opportunity for growth, but companies need to do what makes sense for them. Keeping a basic index approach to corporate crypto treasury management for example, holding 5% of funds in Bitcoin, 95% cash and equivalents and rebalancing when the price increases or decreases allows you to gain exposure to the market while being smart with cash and runway.

Overall, as institutions start to get serious about Bitcoin and the combination of regulation and user experience helps to make crypto a more accessible and accepted asset class, the traditional world of financial management will evolve.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Arianne Flemming is the chief operating officer of Informal Systems, a research-and-development institution focused on distributed systems and protocols. She has extensive experience in financial organization and operational leadership within the blockchain space, having helped design and execute long-term financial and operational strategies.

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The Bitcoin boom: The future of the company balance sheet - Cointelegraph

Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Long before Credit Suisse Group AG was forced to wind down a $10 billion group of funds it ran with financier Lex Greensill, there were plenty of red flags.Executives at the bank knew early on that a large portion of the assets in the funds were tied to Sanjeev Gupta, a Greensill client whose borrowings were at the center of a 2018 scandal at rival asset manager GAM Holding AG. They were also aware that a lot of the insurance coverage the funds relied on depended on a single insurer, according to a report. Credit Suisse even conducted a probe last year of its funds that detected potential conflicts of interest, yet failed to prevent their collapse months later.On Friday, the bank finally pulled the plug and said it would liquidate the strategy, a group of supply chain finance funds for which Greensill had provided the assets and which had been held up as a success story. The funds, which have about $3.7 billion in cash and equivalents, will start returning most of that next week, leaving about two-thirds of investor money tied up in securities whose value may be uncertain.The decision caps a dramatic week that started when Credit Suisse froze the funds after a major insurer for its securities refused to provide coverage on new notes. The move sent shock waves across the globe, prompted Greensill Capital to seek a buyer for its operations, and forced rival GAM Holding AG to shutter a similar strategy. For Credit Suisse and its new Chief Executive Officer Thomas Gottstein, its arguably the most damaging reputational hit after an already difficult first year in charge.While the financial toll on the bank may be limited, fund investors are left with about $7 billion locked up in a product that was presented as a relatively safe but higher-yielding alternative to money markets.The Greensill-linked funds were one of the fastest-growing strategies at Credit Suisses asset management unit, attracting money from yield-starved investors in a region that had for years had to contend with negative interest rates. The bank started the first of the funds in 2017, but they really took off in 2019, the year rival asset manager GAM finished winding down a group of bond funds that had invested a large chunk of their money in securities tied to Greensill and one of his early clients, Guptas GFG Alliance.The Credit Suisse funds, too, were heavily exposed to Gupta early on. As the bank ramped up the strategy, the flagship supply-chain finance fund had about a third of its $1.1 billion in assets in notes linked to Guptas GFG Alliance companies or his customers as of April 2018, according to a filing.Credit Suisse executives were aware but denied at the time that it was an outsized risk, according to people familiar with the matter. They argued that most of the loans were to customers of Gupta and not directly to GFG companies, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.Over time, the proportion of loans linked to GFG and customers appeared to decrease, while new counterparties popped up in fund disclosures that packaged loans to multiple borrowers -- making it harder to determine who the ultimate counterparty is. Many of the vehicles were named after roads and landmarks around Lex Greensills hometown in Australia.The executives in charge of the fund also knew that much of the insurance coverage they relied on to make the funds look safe was dependent on just a single insurer, according to the Wall Street Journal. They considered requiring the funds to secure coverage from a broader set of insurers, with no single firm providing more than 20% of the coverage, but never put the policy in place, the newspaper said.A spokesman for Credit Suisse declined to comment.Greensill, meanwhile, was looking for new ways to fuel the growth of his trade finance empires after the collapse of the GAM funds removed a major buyer of his assets. In 2019, SoftBank Group Corp. stepped in, injecting almost $1.5 billion through its Vision Fund to become Greensills largest backer. It also made a big investment in the Credit Suisse supply chain finance funds, putting in hundreds of millions of dollars, though the exact timing isnt clear.Over the course of 2019, the flagship fund more than doubled in size, but soon questions arose about the intricate relationship between Greensill and SoftBank that fueled the growth. The funds had an unusual structure in that they used a warehousing agreement to buy the assets from Greensill Capital, with no Credit Suisse fund manager doing extensive due diligence on them. Within the broad framework set by the funds, the seller of the assets -- Greensill -- basically decided what the funds would buy.Credit Suisse started an internal probe that found, among other things, that the funds had extended large amounts of financings to other companies backed by SoftBanks Vision Fund, creating the impression that SoftBank was using them and its sway over Greensill to prop up its other investments. SoftBank pulled its fund investment -- some $700 million -- and Credit Suisse overhauled the fund guidelines to limit exposure to a single borrower.Neither Gottstein nor Eric Varvel, the head of the asset management unit, or Lara Warner, the head of risk and compliance, appeared to see a need for deeper changes. The bank reiterated it had confidence in the control structure at the asset management unit.Credit Suisses review didnt mention at the time that Greensill had also extended financing to another of his backers, General Atlantic. The private equity firm had invested $250 million in Greensill Capital in 2018. The following year, Greensill made a $350 million loan to General Atlantic, using money from the Credit Suisse funds, according to the Wall Street Journal. The loan is currently being refinanced, said a person familiar with the matter.A spokeswoman for General Atlantic declined to comment.Shortly after the Credit Suisse probe concluded, more red flags popped up. In Germany, regulator BaFin was looking into a small Bremen-based lender that Greensill had bought and propped up with money from the SoftBank injection. Greensill was using the bank effectively to warehouse assets he sourced, but BaFin was worried that too many of the those assets were linked to Guptas GFG -- a risk that the Credit Suisses managers, for their part, had brushed off earlier.SoftBank, meanwhile, was quietly starting to write off its investment in a stunning reversal from a bet it had made only a year earlier. By the end of last year, it had substantially written down the stake, and its considering dropping the valuation close to zero, people familiar with the matter said earlier this month.Credit Suisse, however, was highlighting the success of the funds to investors. Varvel, the head of asset management, listed them in a Dec. 15 presentation as an example of the innovative and higher-margin fixed-income offerings that the bank was planning to focus on.By that time, Greensill already knew that a little-known Australian insurer called Bond and Credit Company had decided not to renew policies covering $4.6 billion in corporate loans his firm had sourced. The policies were due to lapse on March 1, prompting a last-ditch effort from the supply-chain firm to take the insurer to court in Australia. That day, a judge in Sydney struck down Greensills injunction, triggering the series of events that have since reverberated around the world.Credit Suisse didnt know until very recently that the insurance was about to lapse, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.In an update to investors Tuesday, Credit Suisse said that several factors cumulatively led to the decision to freeze the funds, and that it was looking for ways to return cash holdings. But in a twist that may complicate the liquidation of the remainder, it also said that Greensills German Bank was one of the insured parties and plays a role in the claims process, and that bank was just shuttered by BaFin.Many of the assets in the funds have protection to make them more appealing to investors seeking an alternative to money market funds. Yet the second-biggest of them, the High Income Fund, doesnt use insurance. Its also the fund with the least liquidity, with less than 20% of the net assets in cash.Credit Suisse has said it wasnt aware of any evidence suggesting financial irregularities with the papers issued by Greensill or by the underlying companies. The bank still hasnt commented on how many of the assets in the funds are tied to Guptas GFG Alliance.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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7 Bitcoin And Cryptocurrency Accounts To Follow On Twitter - Yahoo Finance