The total value of the entire cryptocurrency market has surpassed $1T for the first time as Bitcoin (BTC-USD) skyrocketed through $37,700 overnight to hit a fresh record high. Bitcoin is already up about 30% since the start of 2021 and in the past 12 months has surged over 380%. It makes up about two-thirds of the crypto market value, followed by Ether (ETH-USD) at about 13%, according to data from CoinGecko.Reasons behind the rally? Many large institutional investors have been piling into the market, looking to diversify even more of their assets to hedge against inflation and geopolitical risks. A large number of retail investors and trend-following quant funds have also joined the race recently due to FOMO on a quick and easy buck.The bulls: Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou and the team at JPMorgan suggest Bitcoin could rise to $146K as an "alternative" currency if it were to match gold in terms
