Elon Musk, founder and chief engineer of SpaceX, speaks at the Satellite 2020 conference in Washington, DC, United States, on March 9, 2020.
Yasin Ozturk | Anadolu Agency Getty Images
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Saturday that bitcoin prices “seem high” after the cryptocurrency rose to a record high this week.
The price of bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency in the world, went through a major stage on Friday after the market value reached more than 1 trillion dollars, surprising some major supporters. Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency, also hit records.
“Money is just data that allows us to avoid the inconveniences of barter,” Musk, a major supporter of digital currencies, wrote on Twitter. “This data, like all data, is subject to latency and errors. The system will evolve to the one that minimizes both.”
In a subsequent post, Musk added, “who said BTC and ETH seem high, lol,” in a response to a user who said gold is better than bitcoin and cash.
Bitcoin traded below $ 54,000 a coin on Friday as it hit a new high and rose to more than $ 55,000 later in the session, according to Coin Metrics. The cryptocurrency traded over $ 57,000 on Saturday. The price of bitcoin has risen by about 350% in the last six months.
Ethereum also hit a record $ 2,040.62 for a weekly gain of about 12%. It traded at $ 1,996 on Saturday.
The growth of bitcoin was partly determined by the increased adoption by large investors and companies. Bank of New York Mellon said this month that it is moving in space.
Tesla also converted some of its balance sheet cash to bitcoin earlier this year and said it would begin accepting digital currency as payment, a move that sparked even more interest in the currency.
– Jesse Pound of CNBC contributed to the reporting