The price of Bitcoin hit a new record and edged close to $50,000 following new support from enterprises and the financial industry.

First it was Tesla giving Bitcoin its most significant corporate endorsement yet, disclosing in an SEC filing that it had purchased $1.5 billion of the cryptocurrency. Then Mastercard announced it would soon be supporting some digital assets directly on its network.

The trend towards acceptance of digital assets also appears to be making headway among some of the world’s biggest banks. Bank of New York Mellon Corp declared it would provide custody services for digital assets by the end of the year, and it looks like Deutsche Bank may be following in their footsteps.

On Friday, JPMorgan co-president and COO Daniel Pinto told CNBC that the banking giant will have no choice but to support Bitcoin trading if there is client demand for it. Let's not also forget the rumours this weekend that Morgan Stanley’s $150 billion Counterpoint Global investment unit is exploring a bet in Bitcoin.

Another interesting development last week was Jack Dorsey and rap mogul Jay Z partnering on a new Bitcoin endowment fund that will focus initially on Bitcoin development in India and Africa. Dorsey hasn't exactly been coy about his endorsement of the cryptocurrency, having already deployed $50 million of capital on Square's balance sheet to purchase Bitcoin. Now, his social media company Twitter is considering adding Bitcoin to its balance sheet, according to an interview on CNBC last week with the company's CFO, Ned Segal.

Financial Times may not see it, but a domino effect is already underway. The only question is which corporation will be the next domino to fall?

Below is our weekly roundup of industry news. If you’d like to get in touch with us about any of our products or services, we look forward to hearing from you. Just send us a note.

This week's top stories

Tesla buys $1.5bn in Bitcoin, plans to accept it as payment

Tesla said on Monday that it had bought $1.5 billion in Bitcoin – a disclosure that follows Chief Executive Elon Musk’s promotion of the cryptocurrency on Twitter. The move was approved by its board of directors, which consist of names you may be familiar with, like Larry Ellison and James Murdoch. The electric car company also said it would start accepting the cryptocurrency as payment soon.

Bitcoin prices jumped more than 10% following the announcement. Read more

Bitcoin to come to America’s oldest bank, BNY Mellon

Bank of New York Mellon, America's oldest bank threw its weight behind crypto this week, announcing on Thursday it will hold, transfer and issue Bitcoin and other cryptoassets on behalf of its asset-management clients.

“Growing client demand for digital assets, maturity of advanced solutions, and improving regulatory clarity present a tremendous opportunity for us to extend our current service offerings to this emerging field,” Roman Regelman, CEO of asset servicing and head of digital at the bank, said in a press release. Read more

North America’s first Bitcoin ETF gets green light in Canada

On Thursday, the fund manager Purpose Investments Inc confirmed that it has been cleared by Canadian securities regulators to launch Purpose Bitcoin ETF, which the company says is “the first direct custody bitcoin ETF in the world.” Read more

In case you missed it..

⚡️ Grayscale’s crypto assets under management now worth $36bn. Read more

⚡️ Matic rebrands as Polygon to take on Polkadot network. Read more

⚡️ “Our reserves are now in Bitcoin” says Stone Ridge CEO. Read more

⚡️ Kyrgyzstan central bank plans to introduce licenses for crypto exchanges. Read more

⚡️ Siam Bank's VC arm to invest $50 million in blockchain and DeFi startups. Read more

⚡️ PayPal CFO says the company might not convert cash into crypto. Read more

⚡️ Amazon to launch cryptocurrency payments product in emerging countries. Read more

⚡️ Ledn, provider of Bitcoin-backed loans, raises $2.7 million in new funding. Read more

⚡️ Crypto art sales on Ethereum reach a record $80m. Read more

⚡️ Grayscale purchases 52,730 Ethereum in 24 hours. Read more

⚡️ Ethereum storage network Swarm raises $6 million in a private token sale. Read more

⚡️ Grayscale files to register trust for DeFi platform Yearn Finance. Read more

⚡️ BlockFi is raising a Series D funding round at $2.85 billion pre-money valuation. Read more

⚡️ ARK invest boosted its GBTC holdings by 2.14m shares in Q4. Read more

⚡️ BlockFi boosted Grayscale Bitcoin Trust holdings by 11.9m shares, now holds $1.7bn GBTC. Read more

⚡️ PayPal wants to be a CBDC distributor. Read more

⚡️ Nigeria's cryptocurrency crackdown causes confusion. Read more

⚡️ Miami pushes crypto with proposal to pay workers in Bitcoin. Read more

⚡️ UN links North Korea to $281m crypto exchange heist. Read more

⚡️ MicroStrategy begins hiring for Bitcoin data product. Read more

⚡️ CREAM Finance exploited, price crashes 30% instantly. Read more

From Copper

New Report: US takeover – Bitcoin’s available supply shifts to long-term Investors

Our latest in-depth report, published Friday, shows that long-term investors account for nearly 8 out of 10 of all available Bitcoins. What's more, it's North American institutions who've accelerated their buying spree in recent months. U.S crypto investment firm Grayscale holds over 5% of all available Bitcoins, while of the public companies holding Bitcoin on their balance sheets, 75% are U.S or Canada-based operations. Read More

Press release: Copper integrates Avalanche to bolster institutional-grade storage and trading security for AVAX

On Tuesday, we announced our integration with Avalanche, the open-source platform specialising in hosting DeFi applications and enterprise blockchain solutions. Institutional traders of Avalanche's native token, AVAX, now have access to Copper’s hybrid MPC wallet technology, which combines secure offline storage with seamless access to leading online exchanges. Read More

Copper's CFO: Get ready to see more Fortune 500 companies allocate to Bitcoin

Our CFO Ralph Payne shared his thoughts on Tesla's bombshell announcement and why it may have a ripple effect across corporations around the globe. Read More