Bitcoin breaches $30,000 as rally extends into New Year

Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, topped $30,000 for the first time, just weeks after passing another major milestone.

The currency gained almost 6% on Saturday to reach nearly $31,000, before slipping back to about $30,800 as of 1.15 pm in London. It advanced almost 50% in December, when it breached $20,000 for the first time.

The latest gains top an eye-popping rally for the controversial digital asset in 2020, which rebounded sharply after a severe crash in March that saw it lose 25% amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Bitcoin has increasingly been "embraced in more global investment portfolios as holders expand beyond tech geeks and speculators," Bloomberg Intelligence commodity strategist Mike McGlone wrote in a note last month. Proponents have seized on the narrative that the coin could act as a store of wealth amid supposed rampant central-bank money printing, even as inflation remains mostly muted.

Bitcoin should eventually climb to about about $400,000, Scott Minerd, chief investment officer of Guggenheim Investments, told Bloomberg Television in a Dec. 16 interview.