Cryptocurrencies are consolidating after Bitcoin briefly pierced the $US50,000 mark last night.

The crypto king reached an all-time peak of $US50,129.50 ($64,700) at 11.35pm AEDT on Kraken – but then quickly retraced its steps and fell to $47,820 ($61,800) by 5.15am.

By 10am it was trading at just under $US49,000 ($63,700).

As a reminder, BTC changed hands at around $US9,000 ($13,000) for most of June and July.

Kraken Australia managing director Jonathon Miller said earlier this year that the price of the cryptocurrency was being driven by institutional adoption from the likes of Deutsche Bank and BNY Mellon, as well as a Bitcoin ETF in Canada.

“I think there’s a bit of a domino effect happening here on the institutional side, it’s not just dumb money, they’re smart people that really understand asset prices,” he said.

“The institutional money here is making a call, and they’re saying it’s something they want to be invested in at these prices,” which bodes well for the future, Miller said.

On the retail side, Robinhood-style traders like the subversive nature of cryptocurrency and the fact that they can be traded 24/7, he added.

“We’ve had record signups in the past month, record volumes,” Miller said.

Small pullback

Of the 55 crypto assets listed on Kraken, 37 were down over the last 24 hours, three were flat and just 12 were up.

But the losses were mostly modest, by a percentage point or two.

The Keep Network was the biggest loser, down 8.4 per cent to US38.1c, followed by meme coin Dogecoin, down 6.4 per cent to US5.3c.

Cosmo was the biggest gainer, up 9.9 per cent to $US25, followed by Polkadot, up 8.6 per cent to $30.

Ethereum was trading for $US1,782 ($2,309), up 0.2 per cent in the past day.