Bitcoin smashed all its records on Thursday morning as it hit a new high of $37,000, lifting the cryptocurrency market above $1 trillion for the first time. At 12.14 pm, the cryptocurrency traded at $37,174 — up almost 7 percent in 24-hours, according to data from Coindesk.

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The digital currency is up 29 percent since the beginning of 2021, while in the past few months Bitcoin has registered a massive surge of over 380 percent.

As institutional investors take an interest in the digital token, with a new batch of retail investors following their lead, the entire cryptocurrency market has seen a boost.

The parabolic rise in interest and growth of Bitcoin over the last months has increased the total cryptocurrency market value to $1 trillion—over an 8 percent increase over the previous day, according to data from Coinmarketcap.

Ether, an Ethereum-based digital token, was trading at 10 percent higher than the previous day. While currently, it is trading at $1,210, earlier in the morning, it had hit $1,224 for the first time in its digital life. However, the global institutional interest is almost exclusively in Bitcoin.

Ajeet Khurana, the former CEO of a Crypto Exchange, told CNBC-TV18 that the bitcoin dominance in the entire cryptocurrency space is around 61 percent—may be higher now. It rose to about 69 percent within a month.

Many experts are now comparing Bitcoin to Gold—a safe haven and a hedge against inflation.

JPMorgan, one of the biggest investment banks, thinks the currency has more room to grow. It made a bold long-term price target for Bitcoin, claiming that the "rally could touch $146,000 as it competes with gold as an alternative currency."

However, for Bitcoin to be able to compete with Gold actively, its market value has to climb 3.9 times to touch Gold's $2.7 trillion. Currently, the market value of Bitcoin stands at $696.12 billion.

(Edited by : Ajay Vaishnav)

First Published:Jan 7, 2021 12:33 PM IST