Bitcoin wrapped up a historic week with growing momentum, continuing its upward trend on Friday after hitting a new all-time high earlier in the week.
In a report published Thursday, The Wall Street Journal revealed that several major U.S. banks — including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup — are considering launching a joint stablecoin. This initiative aims to enter the digital currency market, leveraging the advantages of stablecoins in facilitating fast and low-cost financial transactions, posing direct competition to existing crypto technologies.
This move comes at a time when the market is experiencing broad optimism about improving regulatory frameworks for digital currencies. The U.S. Senate voted this week in favor of a new bill called the GENIUS Act, marking the first legislative effort to regulate U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins.
Market experts attribute much of the recent surge in cryptocurrency prices to increased institutional interest and investment flows into exchange-traded funds (ETFs). A clearer regulatory environment — as provided by stablecoin legislation — is likely to further ease institutional entry into the crypto space and expand investment in both cryptocurrencies and related financial products like futures contracts.
Against this backdrop, Bitcoin rose by 0.1% over the past 24 hours, reaching $110,925 on Friday morning after peaking near $112,000 on Thursday — its highest level ever.
Other digital currencies showed mixed performance: Ethereum and Ripple posted slight gains, while Solana jumped 3.7%, reflecting continued strong activity in the digital asset market at the end of an exceptional week.
