Bitcoin Price Surges to Near $29,000. Wall Street Is Interested in Crypto Again.

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Bitcoin
and other cryptocurrencies were rising strongly Wednesday as excitement increases around the potential involvement of big financial institutions in the crypto sector. 

Bitcoin
has risen 7.8% over the past 24 hours to $28,829, leaving the largest cryptocurrency at its highest levels since early May. 

Optimism around cryptocurrencies appears to have been stoked by the launch of EDX Markets, a new crypto exchange backed by a consortium of traditional Wall Street firms including

Charles Schwab

(ticker: SCHW) and Citadel Securities. Launched Tuesday, the exchange currently only trades Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. 

The launch of the exchange is another sign of institutional interest in cryptocurrencies, after

BlackRock

 (BLK), the world’s biggest money manager, filed an application with regulators to create a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund last week. 

“Expectations for the approval of BlackRock’s BTC Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) and rumors that Fidelity is preparing to apply for a similar ETF have led BTC to move steadily since the beginning of the week,” wrote Yuya Hasegawa, an analyst at crypto exchange Bitbank, in a note on Wednesday. 

Beyond Bitcoin,

Ether
—the second-largest crypto— was up 5% to $1,810. Smaller cryptos, or altcoins, also were climbing, with

Cardano
up around 8% and

Polygon
rising 6.7%.

Dogecoin
gained 3.6%.

Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com