Investors are confronting difficult questions over whether cryptocurrency investing is compatible with their ESG considerations, as surging bitcoin prices prompt many managers to consider allocating toward digital assets.

A survey of institutional investors and wealth managers who already engage with bitcoin reveals that 85 per cent plan to increase their investment in the cryptocurrency over the next two years.

Nickel Digital Asset Management (Nickel) says the rally in the price of bitcoin is closely correlated to the growing adoption of the cryptocurrency by institutional investors and corporations, and it expects this trend to gather pace.

As more institutional investors dip their toes into the cryptocurrency investing space, the range of assets they are investing in is expanding to include ether, the native asset of the Ethereum blockchain. Interest in Ethereum funds is driving an ongoing price rally, which reached all-time highs above USD1,800 this week.

BlackRock is opening two of its funds to the possibility of investing in bitcoin futures, signalling mounting interest from institutional investors in crypto markets, which started the year with an all-time record USD1 trillion total value.

New data released by Trading Platforms indicates that it costs USD25.2 million per day in electricity to process bitcoin transactions. The consumption cost is based on bitcoin’s 30-day average transaction of 328,418 as of 17 January, 2021, and the energy footprint per 1 BTC transaction confirmation of 612 kWh equivalent to USD76.74.

EQUOS, the cryptocurrency exchange of digital assets financial services company Diginex Limited, has launched Bitcoin (BTC) Perpetual Futures Contracts.

Reef Finance is integrating with the Avalanche blockchain (AVAX), enabling users to access decentralised finance (DeFi) applications in the Avalanche ecosystem directly through Reef's platform. The project is planning to roll out initial features on Avalanche in early Q1 2021.

Bitwise Asset Management, a provider of crypto index funds, recently surpassed USD500 million in assets under management (AUM), after reporting USD100 million in AUM on 28 October, 2020.

Bitcoin latinum, a next-generation bitcoin fork capable of massive transaction volume, digital asset management, cyber security, and capacity has announced its official pre-sale launch.