Bitcoin Hits Fresh 2020 High, Approaches $13K
Bitcoin’s price clocked fresh 2020 highs on Wednesday after online payments company PayPal announced support for cryptocurrencies.
The cryptocurrency was trading at $12,833, a gain of 7.3% in 24 hours, as of 17:00 UTC (1:00 p.m. ET).
Bitcoin jumped to $12,481 during earlier U.S. trading hours to reach the highest level since July 2019, surpassing the previous 2020 high of $12,476 reached on Aug. 18, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index.
PayPal launched a new service enabling its customers to buy, hold, and sell bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash and litecoin, directly within the PayPal digital wallet.
The move is expected to increase cryptocurrency’s utility as a funding source for digital commerce at PayPal’s 26 million merchants.
“This PayPal news is the biggest news of the year in crypto. All banks will now be on a race to service crypto. We have crossed the rubicon,” large crypto investor Michael Novogratz tweeted.
