Bitcoin was last trading at $46,850, according to data from Morningstar for Currency and Coinbase for Cryptocurrency on Monday.

The digital currency registered a record and came close to the $50,000 level Sunday - continuing a rally that has sent it rising almost $20,000, or around 70%, so far this year, Bloomberg reported Monday.

Bitcoin is still up around 4% over the past 24 hours, building on its solid ascent as Wall Street increasingly adopts the world's most popular cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin was recently pegged at $48,800 early Sunday, climbing 3.3% and traded as high as $49,714 earlier in the day. Bitcoin's prices have soared 50% so far this month.

As the virtual hits new highs investors are pouring money into it, and consumer companies are embracing it as well.

A week after Tesla said it bought $1.5 billion in bitcoin, the electronic asset continues to attract players in traditional finance, including Mastercard who said it would start allowing cardholders to transact in certain digital assets on its network, and Morgan Stanley, whose $150 billion investment arm is proposing to bet on the cryptocurrency.

Tesla said it was placing some of its cash reserves in bitcoin rather than dollars and other currencies. Last month, BlackRock, the world's biggest asset manager, added bitcoin as a viable form of investment to two funds.

In Canada, regulators also gave the go signal for the country's first publicly traded bitcoin. Purpose Investments said Canada securities administrators have cleared the launch of the bitcoin exchange-traded fund, making it the first to be granted regulatory approval in North America.

The combination of billionaires like Elon Musk and powerhouse banks, like BNY Mellon - which announced the creation of a new unit to help clients hold, transfer and issue cryptocurrency - is adding more muscle to bitcoin's rapid gains.

The Jack Dorsey-owned payments services company Square and PayPal recently began allowing clients to trade bitcoin. Jay-Z and the Twitter chief executive Dorsey announced Friday that they were establishing a bitcoin development fund.