Bitcoin jumped above the market cap of $1 trillion this week for the first time since May 2021. According to JPMorgan, the rising interest from institutional investors played a major role in the latest BTC rally.
According to a report published by Markets Insider, the research note from the bank states that institutional investors consider Bitcoin as a better inflation hedge than gold. In addition, JPMorgan highlighted the positive impact of El Salvador’s recent Bitcoin adoption.
The price of Bitcoin is up by nearly 25% in the last 7 days. BTC touched a high of approximately $55,000 on Thursday, its highest level since 12 May 2021. Currently, the world’s largest cryptocurrency is trading near $54,000 with a market cap of $1.01 trillion.
"The recent assurances by US policymakers that there is no intention to follow China's steps towards banning the usage or mining of Cryptocurrencies . The recent rise of the Lightning Network and 2nd layer Payments solutions was helped by El Salvador's bitcoin adoption and the re-emergence of inflation concerns among investors has renewed interest in the usage of bitcoin as an inflation hedge," JPMorgan said in the research note.
Bitcoin’s Institutional Adoption
The adoption of the world’s most valuable digital asset increased substantially in 2021. The total number of BTC users nearly doubled within the first six months of the year. During the BTC market correction in June 2021, Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, JPMorgan’s global market strategist, said that the institutional interest in Bitcoin has dried up. Back then, BTC was trading at around $35,000. The recent report from the bank indicates that the institutional investors have started accumulating the world’s largest cryptocurrency again above the $50,000 price level.
"Institutional investors appear to be returning to bitcoin perhaps seeing it as a better inflation hedge than gold," JPMorgan said, adding that the prior trend of money flowing out of gold and into bitcoin has reemerged in recent weeks.
