Bitcoin has passed the $30,000 mark. Photo: 123rf.com The cryptocurrency had been on a march this past week, rising about 18 percent to reach $32,000. The sharp rise in recent days was driven by more institutional investors throwing their weight behind the asset, BitPrime chief executive Ross Carter-Brown said. "For the last week, I think with US president-elect Joe Biden being sort of confirmed, so to speak, has had an effect. "Institutions are still a lot more conservative than retail investors so while there's a lot of uncertainty ... around some of these legal challenges in the US, they've kept quite a bit of their money off the table.