Bitcoin surpasses silver to become the eighth largest asset by market cap

Bitcoin's latest price rise has seen its market cap overtake that of silver, making it into the eighth largest asset in the world.

Bitcoin now has a market cap of $1.4 trillion, while silver only has a market cap of $1.3 trillion, according to CompaniesMarketCap data .

The cryptocurrency remains behind Alphabet, with a market cap of $1.6 trillion. The asset with the largest market cap globally is still gold, at a size of $14.66 trillion.

Bitcoin's price increased by around 2.4% in the past 24 hours and was changing hands for $71,621 at 6:00 a.m. ET, according to The Block's Price Page .

The increase in the price of bitcoin comes comes after another successful week for spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). According to data from BitMEX Research, the total net flow into spot bitcoin ETFs since January 11 is now $9.59 billion.  

BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF, the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), has led the ETF race since its launch in January. According to The Block's Data Dashboard , it reached record daily inflows of $788.3 million on Wednesday, following bitcoin’s new all-time high above $69,000.

The  GM 30 Index , representing a selection of the top 30 cryptocurrencies, has increased by 1.89% to 156.28 in the past 24 hours.