Investing.com - Bitcoin was on track for weekly gains of 4% on Friday amid a general bullish sentiment seen throughout cryptocurrencies.
The number one digital currency by market capitalization continued to move higher for a second consecutive session.
At 8:17AM ET (12:17GMT), Bitcoin had gained 5.18% in the last 24 hours to reach $9,346.40 on the Bitfinex exchange.
The gains came after a rocky start to the week where Bitcoin dropped to $8,800. After a two day recovery, the cryptocurrency then crashed nearly 8% on Wednesday, falling around $800 and bringing back below the psychologically key $9,000 mark.
But bullish sentiment appears to have returned to the volatile asset as two-straight days of recovery have returned Bitcoin above the $9,000 level, although still far from the week’s high of $9,761.50, not to mention its all-time high of nearly $20,000 last December.
Among headlines in the cryptocurrency world this week, a major focus was on the removal of around $140 million in Bitcoin from wallets of the now defunct exchange Mt Gox. Investors feared that the large move of 16,000 Bitcoins could cause an imminent price crash.
Amid bullish news, Dan Morehead, chief executive officer of $1 billion cryptocurrency hedge fund Pantera Capital Management LP, said this week that Bitcoin “is a screaming buy right now.”
Morehead expected Bitcoin to reach new highs within 12 months, and said the crypto market could balloon to even $40 trillion in a 10-year forecast. He added that institutional investor interest in tokens is also on the rise.
Those remarks coincided with news that Nasdaq could consider opening its own cryptocurrency exchange.
"I believe that digital currencies will continue to persist...it's just a matter of how long it will take for that space to mature," said Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman. "Once you look at it and say, 'do we want to provide a regulated market for this?' Certainly, Nasdaq would consider it."
In a bullish 24 hours for cryptocurrency trade, Ethereum gained 7.6% to $684.48 on Friday, Ripple rose 6.7% to $0.85352, while Bitcoin offshoot Bitcoin Cash traded up 4.8% to $1,404.30.