Bitcoin hit a record-high near $45,000 on Monday after Elon Musk’s electric carmaker Tesla invested $1.5 billion in the digital currency.
Bitcoin hit $44,795.20 around 1325 GMT, before cooling slightly to $44,207.95.
The cryptocurrency is up by around 50 percent since the start of the year.
“This is probably one of the biggest developments for the cryptocurrency industry,” noted Fawad Razaqzada, analyst at ThinkMarkets.
“Tesla is going to be a major player in the auto industry and if it starts accepting bitcoin as a form of payment, it will give the digital currency further legitimacy.”
Tesla’s move is “the kind of backing that can take bitcoin through $50,000”, remarked Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com.
It nonetheless raises “questions for fund managers who may not want to invest in a company with this kind of risk on its balance sheet — we know bitcoin is very volatile”, he added.
