Bitcoin Shoots Past $20,000. Why It’s the Best-Performing Investment of the Year.

Bitcoin crossed US$20,000 on Wednesday for the first time, the latest milestone in a rally that has made it the best-performing investment of 2020. Bitcoin was trading just above $20,500 on Wednesday morning, up 180% for the year.

Bitcoin has crossed $19,000 several times this year, after first hitting that number in 2017. But it consistently faltered just before hitting $20,000 and had fallen below $4,000 as recently as March.

It is nearly impossible to explain Bitcoin’s price changes, but analysts had described $20,000 as a key psychological level—like other big round market numbers that don’t mean very much on their own.

The rise has been fueled this year by institutions, which have been growing more comfortable with Bitcoin and even holding some on their balance sheets. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual), an institution that has been around for 169 years, announced last week that it had bought $100 million in Bitcoin, joining companies like Square (ticker: SQ) that have already bought in.

The enthusiasm is filtering down to retail investors, who now have more options to buy crypto, including through their PayPal Holdings (PYPL) accounts.

News that big companies are buying in “swells consumer interest,” says Nigel Green, founder and CEO of deVere Group, a financial advisory and fintech firm.

There is no generally accepted way to value Bitcoin, and it produces no cash flows. But high demand can spur price increases, because the cryptocurrency’s software limits its supply to 21 million. More than 18.5 million Bitcoins have already been created.

If Bitcoin can hold this level, some analysts are predicting sharp moves higher.

“If Bitcoin is able to stay meaningfully above $20,000 for a few days, we would expect prices to move significantly higher over the next six months,” says Greg King, CEO of Osprey Funds, the digital asset subsidiary of REX Shares.

But exciting numbers like $20,000 can be dangerous with a volatile asset like this. Cryptocurrency exchange OKEx and blockchain data firm Kaiko released a report this month showing that large traders tend to sell their positions just as smaller traders jump in — meaning the “smart money” may be unloading crypto as soon as they see hype-fueled rallies like this. And with selling pressure, the price can turn south in a hurry.

“When Bitcoin rallies, the market tends to forget previous, long-drawn-out bearish stretches, and the sentiment shifts to manic euphoria,” the report notes.

Millennial women’s wealth is outpacing men’s as a new generation inherits and grows their assets at a wider scale than ever before, according to RBC Wealth Management.

In a survey of roughly 2,000 men and women with at least $1 million in investable assets, millennial women respondents had an average of $4.6 million, compared with $3.8 million for women of all age groups and $4.5 million for all men.

Inheritance is one part of the picture, as baby boomers are expected to transfer $124 trillion to the next generation, but so is the progress millennial women have made in the world of business, investment and lucrative professional careers as they close the gap with men.

“Millennial women are catching up, or have outpaced the males as far as their wealth building,” said Angie O’Leary, head of wealth strategies at RBC. “We know that’s coming from a more diversified set of investments, such as entrepreneurship, real estate and of course, investments [in financial markets].”

Millennial women, now in their 30s and 40s, tend to differ from earlier generations of women more than they do from men in terms of their source of wealth. While investments were the largest driver of wealth across all categories, millennial women cited business ownership, innovation, and executive roles far more than Gen X or boomer women.

More than 60% of millennial women cited business ownership and more than 40% mentioned executive roles, but neither exceeded 22% for either Gen Xers and Boomers. Younger women also grew their fortunes from professional sports or arts 39% of the time, compared with just 6% and 1% for Gen Xers and Boomers, respectively.

In terms of inheritance, the gap between generations was smaller. About 37% of men and 35% of women cited family money as a source of wealth overall, breaking down to 44% of millennials, 30% of Gen X and 33% of boomer women.

With women controlling so much wealth, their spending and investments as a group are evolving and extending into areas previously considered stereotypically male such as real estate, cars and watches, O’Leary said. “Women are starting to look a lot like their male counterparts when it comes to investments, real estate, philanthropy,” she said. “That’s a really interesting emerging female economy.”

In real estate, for example, single women made up 20% of home buyers in 2024 up from 11% in 1981, when the National Association of Realtors began tracking the data. By contrast, single men make up 8% of the market and have never exceeded 10%, according to NAR.

While men and women shared largely similar priorities overall in terms of well-being, relationships, legacy and personal drive, younger generations of women were successively more likely to value drive and personal power, and successively less likely to rank relationships and social bonds—though that could also be a function of age and stage of life.

“This generational shift suggests evolving societal norms and responsibilities, where younger women seek personal achievements, while older cohorts value nurturing connections and community stability, affecting their financial and lifestyle choices,” the report said.

Bitcoin Shoots Past $20,000. Why It’s the Best-Performing Investment of the Year.

A survey of people with at least $1 million in investable assets found women in their 30s and 40s look nothing like older generations in terms of assets and priorities