The price of bitcoin returned to record highs in trading Thursday thanks to several announcements that boosted investor confidence in the cryptocurrency.

The first announcement came from venture capital-funded bitcoin exchange Coinbase Inc. It announced the launch of Coinbase Custody, a custodian service aimed at large institutional investors like hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds that are looking to park their money in bitcoin holdings. A custodian service holds customers’ securities for safekeeping to minimize the risk of their theft or loss, so in this case Coinbase will be securing bitcoin holdings.

According to a post on Medium by Coinbase Chief Executive Officer Brian Armstrong, the new service will be limited to investors with at least the equivalent of $10 million in bitcoin, and it will charge a $100,000 setup fee. “By some estimates there is $10 billion of institutional money waiting on the sidelines to invest in digital currency today,” Armstrong said. “When we speak with these institutions, they tell us that the number one thing preventing them from getting started is the existence of a digital asset custodian that they can trust to store client funds securely.”

The second good news for bitcoin came from Man Group. The U.K.-based hedge fund, which has $10 billion in funds under management, said it will start trading in bitcoin once the Chicago Mercantile Exchange launches a bitcoin futures contract as planned. According to Reuters, Man Group CEO Luke Ellis said cryptocurrencies presented “a number of challenges,” but that while it’s not part of the company’s “investment universe today – it could be.” He added that “if there is a CME future on bitcoin, it would be.”

CME Group announced in October that it was planning to start offering bitcoin futures trading before the end of the year subject to regulatory approval from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It’s not clear if that approval has yet been granted, however. As recently as Monday, the company was saying that the product would launch in the second week of December.

The compounding good news saw the price of bitcoin finally break clear of the doldrums sparked by disagreements over the future of the underlying code used by cryptocurrency. It surged to as high as $7.998.32 at one point, going oh-so-close to breaking through the $8,000 price for the first time. As of 10:45 p.m. EST, bitcoin was trading at $7,973.84 with the current bull run likely to see the $8,000 mark breached in coming hours.

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