In the last three days, bitcoin has gained over a fifth in value and has again touched a new high while seemingly all set to touch the $10,000 (£7,493.59) mark, ending a few percentages away on Monday.
For the year 2017 there has been a tenfold increase in the value of the cryptocurrency and since October this year, the digital currency has more than doubled. This has been caused by a number of launches of crypto-hedge funds and with anticipation that it would be allowed into the financial mainstream.
At the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange, it touched around $9,600 by 1155 GMT after having traded at $9,721.
At the time of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, 300,000 users were added between Wednesday and Sunday at the U.S. bitcoin wallet provider Coinbase, showed data gathered by Alistair Milne, the Monaco-based manager of the Altana Digital Currency Fund. 13.3 million is the total number of Coinbase users globally.
“The Coinbase data is evidence that adoption is not slowing down,” Milne told Reuters. “Breaking $10,000 seems inevitable following the recent price action.”
After the CME Group, the world’s biggest derivatives exchange operator, announced that it will also begin offering bitcoin futures, there has been an increase in the price of bitcoin in recent months. While no specific date was announced, end of the year is the probable time that the exchange would launch the futures, the company said last week.
Citing reasons that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are too complex, too risky and too volatile to put in other people’s money, the digital coin market has been left along so far by institutional investors. But mainstream investors could be lured in more numbers by the launch of the CME futures, some analysts say.
“Promises of bitcoin futures opening the door to institutional money are supercharging the price,” said Charles Hayter, founder of cryptocurrency data analysis website Cryptocompare.
Industry website Coinmarketcap claims that the market capitalization of bitcoin surpassed $163 billion. market cap is calculated by multiplying the total digital coins available in the market and the value of one coin.
On the other hand, the market cap of all of the cryptocurrencies in circulation exceeded the total estimated market value of Wal-Mart and topped off at more than $300 billion for the first time since the invent of cryptocurrencies.
In recent times, central bankers, investment bankers and other investors have been repeatedly warning that the crypto-market has possibly reached a bubble territory while taking into account the astounding price enhancement.
And similar to China, where authorities earlier in the year had shut down bitcoin exchanges, Western regulators too could take the same route, some say.
“Regulators know the rewards of cryptocurrency and blockchain could be huge but (they) have more than one eye on the catastrophic ramifications if good governance, stability and control are not preserved,” said David Futter, a fintech partner at law firm Ashurst, in London.
“If the carrot of self-regulation proves insufficient, the regulators will not hesitate to use their stick.”
(Source:www.reuters.com)
For the year 2017 there has been a tenfold increase in the value of the cryptocurrency and since October this year, the digital currency has more than doubled. This has been caused by a number of launches of crypto-hedge funds and with anticipation that it would be allowed into the financial mainstream.
At the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange, it touched around $9,600 by 1155 GMT after having traded at $9,721.
At the time of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, 300,000 users were added between Wednesday and Sunday at the U.S. bitcoin wallet provider Coinbase, showed data gathered by Alistair Milne, the Monaco-based manager of the Altana Digital Currency Fund. 13.3 million is the total number of Coinbase users globally.
“The Coinbase data is evidence that adoption is not slowing down,” Milne told Reuters. “Breaking $10,000 seems inevitable following the recent price action.”
After the CME Group, the world’s biggest derivatives exchange operator, announced that it will also begin offering bitcoin futures, there has been an increase in the price of bitcoin in recent months. While no specific date was announced, end of the year is the probable time that the exchange would launch the futures, the company said last week.
Citing reasons that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are too complex, too risky and too volatile to put in other people’s money, the digital coin market has been left along so far by institutional investors. But mainstream investors could be lured in more numbers by the launch of the CME futures, some analysts say.
“Promises of bitcoin futures opening the door to institutional money are supercharging the price,” said Charles Hayter, founder of cryptocurrency data analysis website Cryptocompare.
Industry website Coinmarketcap claims that the market capitalization of bitcoin surpassed $163 billion. market cap is calculated by multiplying the total digital coins available in the market and the value of one coin.
On the other hand, the market cap of all of the cryptocurrencies in circulation exceeded the total estimated market value of Wal-Mart and topped off at more than $300 billion for the first time since the invent of cryptocurrencies.
In recent times, central bankers, investment bankers and other investors have been repeatedly warning that the crypto-market has possibly reached a bubble territory while taking into account the astounding price enhancement.
And similar to China, where authorities earlier in the year had shut down bitcoin exchanges, Western regulators too could take the same route, some say.
“Regulators know the rewards of cryptocurrency and blockchain could be huge but (they) have more than one eye on the catastrophic ramifications if good governance, stability and control are not preserved,” said David Futter, a fintech partner at law firm Ashurst, in London.
“If the carrot of self-regulation proves insufficient, the regulators will not hesitate to use their stick.”
(Source:www.reuters.com)