The price of bitcoin has steadied above $55,000 following a strong surge at the start of the week.

The price of bitcoin has steadied above $55,000 following a strong surge at the start of the week. The rally was spurred on by positive news in the crypto space, pushing BTC to a five-month high. On Tuesday the cryptocurrency reached above $57,000, taking its total gains for October to 33 per cent, before dipping slightly on Wednesday morning. Other leading cryptocurrencies have remained relatively quiet, with Ethereum (ether), Cardano (ada) and dogecoin all continuing to consolidate recent gains. Bitcoin’s price increase has pushed the overall crypto market cap above $2.3 trillion, overtaking the value of tech giants like Amazon, Alphabet (Google) and Microsoft. Only Apple is worth more than the cryptocurrency market, though only by less than $50 billion. The recent surge has reinforced the beliefs of some crypto analysts, who predicted earlier this year that new record highs would be seen before the end of 2021.