Bitcoin continued its price climb today (Nov. 24), rising above $19,000 in the morning, CNBC reported.
At 6:31 pm EST, the digital currency still hit high, sitting at $19,083.92, as the coin approaches its record price of $19,783, which it hit in December of 2017.
While that price apex was followed by a bubble burst and bitcoin fell to $3,122 in 2018, analysts and crypto fans predict this wave is different. Square and PayPal have reportedly been a major instigator in the price rally, buying large quantities of the digital currency.
PayPal’s CEO Dan Schulman recently told CNBC that he’s confident the move to digital currencies is being swiftly adopted and will be permanent, noting “there’s no question that people are flocking to digital payments and digital forms of currency.”
Meanwhile, Australia’s West Coast Aquaculture (WCA) completed an initial public offering that raised the company $3.65 million, CoinDesk reported, the first IPO to use cryptocurrency as an accepted currency.
$3.2 million of the funds, 89 percent of the total, were paid with the stablecoin tether. FinTech STAX, a capital-raising platform that accepts both dollars and cryptocurrency, helped WCA raise the funds.
“We are proud to be part of this historic moment in Australian investment history, said Neo Ching Hoe, CEO and founder of WCA, CoinDesk reported. “We hope this bold initiative helps open the door to more global investment for local companies.”
Using cryptocurrency in capital raises opens the Australian market up to overseas investors, STAX CEO Kenny Lee said, according to CoinDesk, a “hard” market for them to get into.
“It will only benefit Australian businesses longer term,” he said.
In other news, SBI VC Trade, a subsidiary of SBI Holdings, announced today (Nov. 24) that it is launching a lending service that allows users to lend cryptocurrency to SBI and earn 1 percent interest, according to Cointelegraph.
The platform, VC Trade Lending, will support just bitcoin initially, but has plans to add Ether and XRP support.
To participate, users must lend a minimum of 0.1 Bitcoin, which was $1,840 at the time of Cointelegraph’s article’s publishing. The maximum loan is 5 Bitcoin, or $92,000.