By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – Bitcoin rallied to a nearly three-year high Thursday, as the popular crypto continued to ride earlier-week optimism following signs of institutional demand that many see as key to ensuring the latest run has staying power.
Bitcoin rose 1.76% to $16,096, a level not seen since the previous rally in 2017 that saw the crypto hit $20,000.
Advocates of bitcoin have long waited for institutional players to enter the crypto fray, believing that larger pools of capital were needed to legitimize the bitcoin as an asset class.
The move higher followed a surge earlier this week after legendary investor Stanley Druckenmiller said he was a bitcoin investor and talked up the popular crypto as a store of value.
"Bitcoin could be an asset class that has a lot of attraction as a store of value to both millennials and the new West Coast money — and, as you know, they got a lot of it,” said the billionaire," Druckenmiller said in an interview on CNBC. "It’s been around for 13 years and with each passing day it picks up more of its stabilization as a brand."
Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal said the endorsement of bitcoin from Druckenmiller should pave the way for other big hitters on Wall Street to jump on the crypto bandwagon and recently touted new-all time highs for bitcoin could come by next year for the latest.
Still, there are many big-swinging Wall Street fund managers who remain on the sidelines and have railed against the idea of bitcoin as a store of value.
Bridgewater Associates founder and CIO Ray Dalio highlighted several highlights to the adoption of bitcoin including the threat of regulation, and he also downplayed the demand for bitcoin as an alternative to owning gold.
"I don't think digital currencies will succeed in the way people hope they would for those reasons … I wouldn't prefer bitcoin to gold," he said. "Gold will be the vehicle that central banks and countries use as an alternative to cash."
The move higher in bitcoin has coincided with a jump in its market cap to $298.13 billion, up from $241.38 billion late-October, a sign that demand continues to strengthen.