Bitcoin jumps to within $2 of $50,000 as currency hits new high thanks to Wall Street interest

Bitcoin jumps to within $2 of $50,000 as currency hits new high thanks to Wall Street interest

The bitcoin price hit a record high just $2 away from the vaunted $50,000 mark on Tuesday, as interest from Wall Street institutions added momentum to the remarkable rally.

Bitcoin rose to $49,998 on the Binance exchange, which saw the most volume over the last 24 hours, before slipping back. It touched a high of $49,873 on the Coinbase exchange.

The bitcoin price (BTC) was up around 2.9% to $49,107 at 4.15am ET on Binance.

Elon Musk's Tesla triggered the latest climb higher on February 8, when it revealed it had bought $1.5 billion of the cryptocurrency in January. It also said it intended to start accepting the coin as payment.

Since then, interest from major financial firms including BNY Mellon and Mastercard has helped support the rally by adding legitimacy to the asset.

Read more: A Ruffer portfolio manager invested a portion of his $4.8 billion fund in Bitcoin. Here's what swayed him to bet on crypto - and the 2 other ways he's hedging against worrying speculative bubbles

BNY Mellon plans to issue, hold, and transfer clients' bitcoin, it announced on February 11. It would be the first global bank to provide an integrated digital asset service to its customers.

Mastercard will begin allowing customers to