Bitcoin soars to top $50,000 for the first time in a month - as Mike Novogratz heralds the start of its '4th-quarter rally'

• Bitcoin topped $50,000 for the first time in a month on Tuesday, having risen sharply over the last week.
• Crypto bull Mike Novogratz said he was excited and that it could be the start of a fourth-quarter rally.
• Bitcoin has been on a wild ride in 2021, topping $64,000 in April before plunging to below $30,000 in July.

Bitcoin has risen above $50,000 for the first time in a month, with crypto billionaire Mike Novogratz saying the rise could be the start of a fourth-quarter rally.

The world's biggest cryptocurrency was up 2.4% to $5,183 as of 6.35 a.m. ET, reaching its highest level since the start of September, according to Bloomberg prices. Bitcoin has rallied sharply over recent days, having traded around $41,000 only seven days earlier.

"Bitcoin ... regaining the $50,000 mark appears to be a culmination of a process that began as crypto trading activity started to bounce back late this summer," Curtis Ting, crypto exchange Kraken's managing director for Europe, said.

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There has been a resurgence of interest in bitcoin recently, Ting noted, after some traders moved toward other digital assets, such as ethereum's ether and cardano's ada token. He said bitcoin volumes have recently been well above those for ether, the second-biggest cryptocurrency.

"Accommodative statements" from the US Securities Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve are boosting confidence in bitcoin, CoinShares said in a report Monday, helping it attract inflows at the expense of altcoins.

Novogratz, the founder of crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital, celebrated bitcoin's run higher in a tweet Monday:

"Crypto trades like no-one has it … the 4th quarter rally might have started."

Novogratz said he was surprised and happy that bitcoin was rising even as tech stocks were hammered on Monday. During the last stock sell-off, bitcoin fell sharply as investors dumped riskier assets.

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Bitcoin has been on a wild ride in 2021. It soared to a record high above $64,000 in April as big companies and institutions such as Tesla bought into digital assets, exciting retail investors.

But it then plunged in May, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk criticized the token's energy use and said the electric-car maker would stop accepting bitcoin in payment. At the same time, China launched a crackdown on the crypto industry. These pressures helped drive the price of bitcoin below $30,000 in July.

Analysts have struggled to pinpoint an exact reason for the recent crypto rally, but they have noted that institutions still seem to be keen on digital assets despite their volatility.

In particular, excitement has built around decentralized finance or DeFi - the use of crypto technology to carry out financial tasks such as trading or lending, without the need for middlemen.