CURRENCIES: Bitcoin Ticks Higher Following Pullback From Record

Cryptocurrency is less than 4% from record set on Tuesday

The price of bitcoin rose Wednesday, following a brief dip below the $4,000 mark, in an apparent run at another record high.

Bitcoin touched an all-time high of $4,483.55 on Tuesday, following a record close at $4,382.74 on Monday, according to Coindesk (https://www.coindesk.com/price/). Following a slight pullback, the price of bitcoin was last up 2.6% at $4,315.41, after touching an intraday high of $4,410.98. For its part, the greenback, as gauged by the U.S. dollar index , declined 0.3% to 93.57.

The cryptocurrency has been on a streak of setting records lately. Having first broken the $1,000 barrier in November 2013, bitcoin took until May of this year to break the $2,000 barrier, with $3,000 surpassed in June and then $4,000 this past Sunday.

On Tuesday, blockchain technology company Blockstream (https://blockstream.com/2017/08/15/announcing-blockstream-satellite.html) said it is using leased satellites to transmit access to the blockchain, which accounts for all transactions and maintains cryptocurrency integrity, to two-thirds of the world's landmass and expects global coverage by the end of the year.

At a $71.06 billion market cap, bitcoin is in the same neighborhood as such S&P 500 index companies such as Costco Wholesale Corp.(COST) , DuPont(DD) , and Netflix Inc.(NFLX) .

Ether, the cryptocurrency running on the Etherium network, was up 3.9% at $301.20 , off its high of $388.49 set on June 15.

Read:Opinion: How you can make easy money from the bitcoin bubble (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-you-can-make-easy-money-from-the-bitcoin-bubble-2017-08-16)

The total market capitalization for all cryptocurrencies currently stands at $140.48 billion, according to Coinmarketcap.com (https://coinmarketcap.com/), just under the market cap of Boeing Co.(BA) , and slightly more valuable than International Business Machines Corp.(IBM)

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 16, 2017 16:23 ET (20:23 GMT)