Investing.com – Cryptocurrency prices were higher on Wednesday as Bitcoin neared $4,000 amid a holiday upswing.

Bitcoin rose 8.7% to $3,843.10 on the Investing.com Index, as of 8:03 AM ET (14:03 GMT), after jumping nearly 11% on Monday.

Still, Bitcoin is down nearly 75% since its all time high a year ago. Digital coins have fallen dramatically in recent weeks traders worry about increased regulatory scrutiny and volatility.

Cryptocurrencies overall were higher, with the total coin market capitalization at $126 billion at the time of writing, compared to $112 billion on Tuesday.

Ethereum,or Ether, increased 10% to $104.91 and Litecoin was at $30.76, up 6%, while XRP jumped 12% to $0.37448.

Meanwhile, France rejected a number of tax amendments that would have benefited digital currency traders, including raising the annual tax exemption from €305 ($347) to either €5,000 or €3,000. Another amendment would have allowed capital gains to be taxed on the same basis as securities. The French National Assembly rejected the calls, stating that compared to how securities are taxed, “increasing to €5,000 or €3,000 seems particularly excessive.”

In other news, CEO of crypto payments platform BitPay Stephen Pair told CNBC in an interview that widespread cryptocurrency adoption is still a couple years away.

“I used to say 10 years, but now I think it’s more like 3-5 years until you can go into a restaurant, a retail establishment, and just everybody’s going to expect that that store will be able to accept a blockchain payment,” said Pair.

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