Bitcoin is getting closer to looking like a traditional financial product.

Japanese financial information firm Fisco announced Monday it is experimenting with the country's first bitcoin-backed bond. The news follows other announcements in the last several weeks for bitcoin options, futures and an exchange-traded fund tracking bitcoin derivatives in the U.S.

"I think it's a very healthy and natural progression of the space," said Adam White, Coinbase vice president and general manager of its GDAX exchange, told CNBC in a phone interview.

Derivatives products will allow for greater liquidity, better price discovery and lower volatility, White said. "I think products like derivatives or an ETF effectively allow traders to do two things: speculate and hedge risk on the price speculation."

Bitcoin price 12-month performance

Source: CoinDesk

Bitcoin has more than quadrupled in price this year, hitting a record above $4,500 Thursday and notching a market value of $74 billion amid growing institutional investor interest in the digital currency. Many governments and financial institutions see enormous potential for improving transaction security and efficiency using the blockchain technology that supports bitcoin.

But the surge in investor demand has also revealed access issues with third-party storage systems and trading platforms that fall short of the more established Wall Street markets.

Bitcoin's price is also prone to massive swings of several hundred dollars within a day. With bitcoin futures in the works, investors will be able to protect themselves from potential sharp drops in prices through hedging.

The ability to hedge bitcoin investments paves the way for other products, such as bonds.

Fisco's three-year bitcoin bond was issued by its digital currency exchange unit for an internal trial on Aug. 10, according to a Google translate of the press release.

The bond has a three percent annual interest rate and returns bitcoins when it matures, the release said. The total worth of the bond was 200 bitcoin, or $900,000 at Thursday's prices.

The bitcoin bond "brings digital currencies into the world of high finance," said Dan Doney, chief executive officer of Securrency, which plans to launch a platform at the end of the year to allow investors to buy stocks using bitcoin. Doney was chief innovation officer at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency before co-founding Securrency in 2015.

The biggest challenge is "it is very difficult to predict the price of bitcoin tomorrow, let alone a year from now," Doney said.

A bitcoin-backed bond would allow large institutions to store value using the digital currency and potentially be more open to accepting bitcoin as payment, analysts said.

"It is interesting financial firms are trying to get their arms around the currency and what it can be," said Brian Patrick Eha, author of "How Money got Free: Bitcoin and the Fight for the Future of Finance."

In early August, the Chicago Board Options Exchange said it planned to launch bitcoin futures as soon as the fourth quarter of this year. That paved the way for VanEck, which sells gold ETFs and other investment products, to file last Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a "VanEck Vectors Bitcoin Strategy ETF" that proposes to initially invest in bitcoin futures.

The U.S. Commodity and Futures Commission in late July also approved a digital currency trading platform called LedgerX to clear derivatives.

Historically cryptocurrencies "were very much a domain for crypto anarchists and tech-savvy people, and that has changed in the last couple years," said Niklas Nikolajsen, CEO of Swiss-based digital currency broker Bitcoin Suisse. "This means a whole new ballgame of people are going to get access to the market."

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Bitcoin bond launch brings digital currency step closer to 'world of high finance' - CNBC

Following moves by China and Japan to regulate digital currencies, Australia is attempting to crackdown on money laundering and terrorism financing with plans to regulate bitcoin exchanges.

"The threat of serious financial crime is constantly evolving, as new technologies emerge and criminals seek to nefariously exploit them. These measures ensure there is nowhere for criminals to hide," said Australia's Minister for Justice Michael Keenan in a press release.

The Australian government proposed a set of reforms on Thursday which will close a gap in regulation and bring digital currency exchange providers under the remit of the Australian Transactions and Reporting Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC).

These exchanges serve as marketplaces where traders can buy and sell digital currencies, such as bitcoin, using fiat currencies, such as the dollar.

Bitcoin has grown massively this year. The market cap has increased to $73.93 billion and the price recently hit fresh record highs. It currently trades at $4,476 and the price has risen 348 percent year to date.

The reform bill is intended to strengthen the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act and increase the powers of AUSTRAC.

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Another major country joins China and Japan in cracking down on bitcoin exchanges - CNBC

Defying naysayers, Bitcoin's price surged above $4,500 for the first time early Thursday to reach a market value of $73.6 billion.

While the cryptocurrency has since pared some of its gains, falling to $4,453 by midday Thursday, it's risen by about $1,000 in the past nine days. The currency's total market value jumped $17 billion in the same period, thanks in part to the optimism traders have around plans to help Bitcoin eventually go mainstream . This includes speedier transactions, starting with its software updatedubbed Segwit2xearlier this month.

We can also speculate that it is related to the increased interest from Korean and Japanese exchanges where volumes are also increasing, William Mougayar, the founder of Startup Management, told Fortune . Another part of it is driven by the psychology of markets, as $USD 5,000 seems to be within reach, now that the $4,000 level has been easily broken.

That said, Bitcoin's sudden rise is cause for concern for some.

Goldman Sachs analyst Sheba Jafari wrote in a Sunday note that she expected Bitcoin to potentially hit and peak at $4,827.

"The market should in theory enter a corrective phase. This can last at least one third of the time it took to complete the preceding advance and retrace at least 38.2% of the entire move," she wrote. "From current levels, that would measure out to around $2,221."

Meanwhile, plans to scale up Bitcoin haven't exactly gone smoothly. Miners still appear split about how to implement SegWit2x. The first part of that plan was activated earlier this month, but the second part, an upgrade to Bitcoin's software by increasing block size to two megabytes in November, has been a point of contention. That upgrade, which was made official this week, will result in a " hard fork ."

Miners already dissatisfied with Segwit2x decided not to make that upgrade earlier this year, forming a new cryptocurrency offshoot dubbed Bitcoin Cash . If more miners shun the November upgrade, it would in theory result in yet another Bitcoin currency.

Bitcoin Cash is trading at about $373.80, 47% off its all-time high earlier this month. Ethereum, on the other hand, is trading at about $289, 26% off its all-time high earlier this year.

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Bitcoin Surged to a New High Adding $17 Billion in Just Over a Week - Fortune

Bitcoin Cash's price rose above the $400 mark today, breaking the rangebound market trend of thepast several days.

The cryptocurrency climbed as high as $406 today, according to data fromCoinMarketCap. The move followed days of steadymarketfluctuations, with the price of Bitcoin Cash trading no more than a few dollars above or below the $300 level.

The largest Bitcoin Cash market by-volume is Bithumb, which accounts for roughly 30 percent of the global trade through its Korean won-Bitcoin Cash trading pair, CoinMarketCap figures show. The exchange reports more than $145 million in volume over the past 24 hours.

At press time, Bitcoin Cash is trading at about $391 onBithumb.

As previously reported by CoinDesk, Bitcoin Cash split off from the main bitcoin blockchain earlier this month when a group of miners and developers moved to adopt software, with new network rules, that was incompatible with the rest of the network. The result: bitcoin "forked" into two distinctblockchains with their own freely-traded digital assets.

Today's upward price action comes just hours after bitcoin reached a new all-time high above$4,500.

Rollercoaster image via Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. Have breaking news or a story tip to send to our journalists? Contact us at [emailprotected].

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Bitcoin Cash Breaks Price Doldrums to Push Past $400 - CoinDesk

As expected, XRP prices took a cautiously bullish step yesterday, rising 1.03% on Ripple news about an expansion to China, the world’s largest market.

Volatility in Ripple prices appeared to ease during the early morning hours, although that might be because fewer tokens exchanged hands this morning than they did last night.

While that lower volatility reduces the chance for spectacular one-day gains, it likely gave Ripple investors some confidence after a week of hard losses. Bitcoin has been sucking up all the air in crypto markets lately, having successfully.

The post Ripple Price Forecast and Analysis – August 17, 2017 appeared first on Profit Confidential.

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Ripple Price Forecast and Analysis – August 17, 2017

Hi everyone, it's Yuji from Tokyo. I've been writing about the trials and tribulations of bitcoin for more than a year.

The recent bitcoin civil war has been an ugly, highly politicized affair, with each side trying to manipulate the media and tilt public opinion in their favor. After almost every one of my articles went out, I was bombarded by opinionated enthusiasts through Twitter, email, and even face-to-face.

That's why the community breathed a sigh of relief last month with a compromise called SegWit2x, an upgrade to bitcoin's underlying software. After the agreement, the cryptocurrency has doubled in price, with bulls predicting a new golden age of blockchain innovation and more gains.

The problem is that SegWit2x is a two-step process, and only the first one is complete. The second step, scheduled for November, is already generating controversy and could halt the rally unless things go smoothly. Given the community's stormy history, I would expect anything but. If you own or follow bitcoin, here are three things to watch in the coming months:

The first step of SegWit2x was SegWit, which has fixed bugs and given developers room to add new blockchain functions. As a result, if we start to actually see new tools being tested or implemented (like Lightning), it would go a long way to proving the bullish thesis that bitcoin can be as innovative as other cryptocurrencies, like ethereum. The second step of SegWit2x aims to double transaction capacity (hence "2x"). It was included to win support from miners, who earn fees from transactions. The problem is that some developers are now saying SegWit can do the same thing, and are backing away from the scheduled implementation in November. If support for "2x" part falls apart, either the miners or developers could walk away from the agreement, rekindling worries of a bigger split that rocked the currency in mid July. SegWit2x didn't please everyone, and a minority of miners later broke off to form a new version of bitcoin called Bitcoin Cash. While its market value is currently just a tenth of bitcoin, it has been winning support from key businesses such as Coinbase and BitGo. If this trend accelerates and if Bitcoin Cash's price rises, it could create incentives for more miners to abandon the original bitcoin and migrate to the new version, or even create more offshoots. The battle has been as much about bitcoin's rightful identity as it's been about protecting economic interests. Miners want it to function as a nimble payment system similar to Visa , which would let them earn more transaction fees. Their opponents, developers who upkeep bitcoin's software, want it to act more as a robust platform that allows them to build new functions on top. Reconciling these two needs is at the core of the ongoing internecine battle, making it even more important for stakeholders to keep an eye on developments through November.

The Uber investor and boardroom drama continues unabated. The ride-hailing company is in exclusive talks to line up funding from four investors, but a deal, which could reach as much as $12 billion, hangs on the outcome of a courtroom brawl between Travis Kalanick and Benchmark.

A billionaire comes out of hiding. Chen Tianqiao, who built game developer Shanda Interactive Entertainment into what was once Chinas biggest internet company (big enough to rival Alibaba and Tencent), disappeared after leaving China and taking his company private in 2012. Now, hes ready to talk again, donating money for research into the human brain.

Staring at the sun isnt really a good idea. So Amazon is cracking down on sellers of fake eye protection for viewing this months total solar eclipse in North America. The web retailers efforts to police faulty or counterfeit eclipse-viewing glasses has caught up one small merchant in Utah.

Its Netflix , but at movie theaters. Mitch Lowe, a Netflix co-founder, has an extreme proposal for how to get more people into seats: Let them come to all the showings they want for about $9.95 per month. His startup, MoviePass, plans to drop the price of the companys movie ticket subscriptions, with the goal of amassing a large base of customers and collect data on viewing behaviors.

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Bitcoin's Next Battle May Already Be Looming - Fortune

Let me just say: Bubbles are fantastic. Its never so easy for an ordinary person to make free money as during a financial mania. Just steel your nerves, jump in oh, and remember to get out before the whole thing comes crashing down.

Especially that last part.

Never miss out on a bubble, advised the late Dan Bunting, an old friend and a successful money manager in London over many decades. Youll make the most money from the worst stocks.

And so it proved. The dot-com bubble paid off my mortgage, and then some.

I never thought Id see something so nutty again, yet it seems to be happening again. These digital currencies may be rubbish more on that below but it looks like were in big, fat bitcoin bubble right now. If so, there is seriously easy money to be made.

Bitcoin BTCUSD, +5.39% shrugged off a crash in July and is now setting new highs. It has doubled in a month, despite economic worries and the crisis in Korea.

Read: As bitcoin flies past $4,000, one bull now targets $7,500 by next year

And Fidelity, that blue-chip investment firm, just gave bitcoin the stamp of approval and will include it in its online portal.

Let the good times roll.

A staggering $1.25 billion of fiat i.e., real money has so far been raised by insiders this year rolling out new digital coins that will help finance their new dot-com venture or service or product, according to Coinschedule.com, a website that tracks the data.

Heres how it works: A group of kids in hoodies say theyre going to set up a cloud computing venture and let you finance it in return for some of their new digital currency. You send them dollars. They send you new digital currency. If and when they put down the doobies long enough to get the venture rolling, you can use these new digital currencies to pay to use the service.

Read: Bitcoin rises, so people Google bitcoin, so then bitcoin rises, so then people Google...

Dont make me laugh. Have you ever seen anything so stupid?

Yes, I have, actually. It was 1999. If you werent around then, this is pretty much exactly how it went down.

Anyone over 30 was called a fuddy-duddy who just didnt get it. People actually got fired for not joining in. Only afterward came the excuses and the finger-pointing. Oh, and the lawsuits.

And, I repeat: So far this year these initial coin offerings have raised a staggering $1.25 billion from the public. Booyah, indeed!

A couple of months back I said these cryptocurrencies are nonsense. From a serious investment standpoint thats true. Price is a function of supply and demand. At the moment there is an endless supply of new cryptocurrencies. People are literally creating new ones every week.

Demand is uncertain, unknown and unknowable. I still have yet to hear a convincing argument why anyone needs these things other than a money launderer or someone who wants to, say, play internet poker.

Anyone who claims to come with solid valuation for any of these digital currencies is talking out of his hat. A long-term investor is betting on a poker hand with the cards face down.

Read: Confused about bitcoin? 10 things you need to know

Fidelitys move is a classic trickle-down sign. Manias grow as they gain mainstream acceptance. Other investment managers will probably follow suit. Billionaire Mark Cuban has switched sides: After dismissing cryptocurrencies as a bubble, hes now cashing in.

There are speculative opportunities galore. You can easily buy well-known currencies like bitcoin and ethereum by opening up an account, known as a digital wallet, with a company such as Coinbase or Blockchain. There are even apps on your iPhone.

Or you can jump into the crowdfunding of the next new, hot-off-the-press digital currency through an initial coin offering. This is the digital coin equivalent of an IPO. Bigger risks, but probably even bigger potential gains.

Read: What is an ICO?

I could waste your time trying to evaluate them, but its all guesswork. Its a bubble. Thats all you need to know. Idiots are running around handing out free money. You buy things where you think a plausible narrative will catch hold and drive it higher. You sell when the momentum turns. And you can manage your risks by gambling with the houses money, which means starting small and building your stake slowly as you start to show a profit.

Just remember its a trade, not an investment, and make sure to get out when it all goes sour. That could be in a week, a month or a year. Nobody knows.

This is high-risk speculation, but there is a surprisingly decent chance of easy money. Just caveat emptor.

Now read: 22 internet memes that let you relive bitcoins historic rise

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Opinion: How you can make easy money from the bitcoin bubble - MarketWatch

Blockstream

Bitcoin, and virtual currency as a whole is a complicated and emerging sector which has experienced its share of both investor joy and despair. To make the industry even more interesting, the cryptocurrency has now been launched into space.

Bitcoin, argued by some to be an alternative to traditional currency -- and others as a financial asset -- has been touted as a decentralized way to equalize cash funds by wrestling control away from government parties and companies, as well as keeping transactions private.

There are companies out there which consider the virtual currency as a way to boost the economy of countries where access to banks, bank accounts, or preserving funds is difficult -- especially if corrupt governments are in control.

Blockstream is one such firm, which hopes that launching Bitcoin into space will help these areas utilize Bitcoin even if they have no consistent access to the internet.

On Tuesday, the company announced Blockstream Satellite, which the company calls "one more step in the journey towards everyone on the planet being able to participate in Bitcoin."

Blockstream Satellite is claimed to be a way for Bitcoin transactions to be blasted out in real-time from satellites in space. This will, in theory, give anyone and everyone free access to the Bitcoin network.

A trader in a rural area of Africa could operate on the network, for example, in the same manner as someone in the middle of New York.

If the average person has control over their Bitcoin, it may avoid issues with currency value reduction caused by governments. In the recent cases of India and Venezuela, India's government forced the removal of many cash notes from the economy which hurt many on low incomes and closed businesses, while Venezuela's economic collapse caused chaos.

Both were caused by governments, and it may be that virtual currency could prevent such issues from occurring again. (However, a counter argument is the volatility of Bitcoin value, as we have seen rise and fall in an extreme manner in the past few years, could simply create new economic problems.)

Despite this, Blockstream is confident that expanding virtual currency access worldwide is the way forward.

"The growing Bitcoin global currency brings new values, a new ideology, and new utility to the world. It is decentralized, powered by the people who use it," the company says. "It knows no borders, it is not a legal entity, and nobody controls it. With Bitcoin, no one needs permission to transact with another person or company; we simply transact as we see fit. This gives consumers, merchants, and even entire economies more choices."

The network requires a PC, a TV satellite dish, and receiver, as well as an SDR dongle. Users can then sync up with a Blockstream satellite and tap into the blockchain. However, the project does not solve the issue that an internet connection is still needed to actually trade on the network.

Speaking to Motherboard, Chris Cook, head of the Blockstream Satellite project said:

Currently, Blockstream Satellite is available across two-thirds of countries worldwide and plans to extend this to everyone no matter their location -- on landmass -- are expected to bear fruit by the end of the year.

"As more people access the Bitcoin blockchain with Blockstream Satellite, we expect to see even more adoption and use cases for Bitcoin as well as a strengthening of the overall robustness of the network," the company said.

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Bitcoin launches into space to boost trading worldwide - ZDNet

Ripple prices remained relatively flat in yesterday’s trading, although there was a slight bias to the downside. XRP prices dropped 1.12% over 24 hours, adding to a lackluster week of 13% losses.

All this occurred despite Ripple news of expansion into China.

Under normal circumstances, investors ramp up their holdings at the merest whiff of international expansion. However, in this case, optimism was blunted by confusion over whether or not Ripple is entering China alone.

Read: Ripple Price Forecast and Analysis - August 17, 2017

Rumors.

The post Ripple Price Forecast and Analysis – August 16, 2017 appeared first on Profit Confidential.

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Ripple Price Forecast and Analysis – August 16, 2017

Bitcoin: The Blow-Off Stage Is Now Upon Us
Cryptocurrencies are the latest rage, and nothing quite grabs headlines like Bitcoin and Bitcoin prices. This past weekend, the Bitcoin price crossed the $4,000 threshold, and for someone like myself who expresses his opinions on investment products, this feat marked quite a significant accomplishment.

In a January 5, 2017 article titled "The Bitcoin Price Bubble Is Far from Over," I expressed my opinions on Bitcoin and Bitcoin prices. My opinion is a tad bit conflicted because on one hand, I believed that Bitcoin in its current form is.

The post Bitcoin Prices Have Entered the Blow-Off Stage appeared first on Profit Confidential.

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Bitcoin Prices Have Entered the Blow-Off Stage

Yet these new assets comprise just a fraction of the world's multi-trillion currency market. And as a new asset with a smaller pool of investors, cryptocurrencies are subject to wild swings in value. In the last week alone, for instance, one bitcoin has ranged from a high of $4,463 to a low of $3,283.

It's also largely unpredictable which digital currencies will have staying power. Like any new market remember all those dot.com busts? it can take years for a shakeout and for lawmakers and regulators to figure out their oversight approach. Already, the anonymity that comes with these digital transactions raises concerns of money laundering and the funding of illicit activities.

Another major difference is that bitcoin's creation, value and integrity come from complicated, mathematical wizardry, known as "blockchain" technology, that regulates the creation of new units and ensures the security of every transaction involving the digital currency.

That's where Samson comes in as a miner. Basically, new bitcoins come into circulation via these miners. (See chart below.) When 21 million units are reached, expected in 2040 or so, no more bitcoins will be created.

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Bitcoin 'miners' dig more than just the money - CNBC

Bitcoin hit another record high on Tuesday, with the continuing rally bringing its market capitalization within touching distance of major stocks like Netflix.

The price of the cryptocurrency hit an all-time high of $4,483.55 in early trade on Tuesday, continuing the strong rally seen in the past couple of weeks, according to industry website CoinDesk. Bitcoin did dip, however, as low as $4,265.29 on the day.

Bitcoin's market capitalization the total number of coins in circulation multiplied by the price also hit $73.5 billion when the record high was hit, Coinmarketcap data shows. This makes it the highest market capitalization yet.

If bitcoin was a stock (which it isn't), it would be the seventy-fourth biggest by market capitalization, just behind Adobe and Netflix on the S&P 500. Adobe has a market cap of $73.6 billion while Netflix is worth $73.8 billion, putting bitcoin within touching distance of both.

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Bitcoin market cap is within touching distance of major stocks like Netflix - CNBC

Tuesday's sell-off in both bitcoin and gold has many suspecting that the two are correlated, but Todd Gordon thinks that not only is there no such relationship, bitcoin is also the better bet for a rally.

The TradingAnalysis.com founder says that while a shorter-term chart of bitcoin and gold together may show that the two are moving in tandem, a longer-term chart actually tells a different story. Looking at a four-hour chart of bitcoin and gold, Gordon remarked Tuesday on CNBC's "Trading Nation" that "the two have run up fairly well here together in August."

However, looking at a chart of both dating to March, Gordon remarks that while gold has failed to break through the $1,300 level three times, bitcoin actually saw big rallies right when the yellow metal dropped.

"The three major peaks in gold were associated with bitcoin at $1,222, in June at $2,969, [and more recently at] $4,374," said Gordon. "So as gold has triple topped at around $1,300, bitcoin is making new highs."

The consistent rally in bitcoin and gold's failure to reach $1,300 has the trader concluding that out of the two, there is a "buying opportunity in bitcoin."

The cryptocurrency has surged this year and is now up about 326 percent year to date.

Link:

Here's why one technical trader is picking bitcoin over gold - CNBC

Space-like adjectives are often used to describebitcoins stratospheric price rise. Now there may be some truth in those analogies.

Blockstream Inc. plans to make the digital ledger underpinning the cryptocurrency accessible via satellite signal so people without Internet access, or in places where bandwidth is expensive, can trade and mine bitcoin. The company also touts the service as additional layer of reliability for bitcoins blockchain data in the event of a network disruption.

Bitcoin has soared more than 50 percent since the start of the month. A plan to move some data off the main network was activated last week in an effort to quicken trade execution and broaden access, helping to fuel the optimism. The price climbed to a record $4,449.90 Tuesday before retreating.

Read more on bitcoin and blockchain

With more users accessing the bitcoin blockchain with the free broadcast from Blockstream Satellite, we expect the global reach to drive more adoption and use cases for bitcoin, while strengthening the overall robustness of the network, Blockstream co-founder Adam Back wrote in an e-mailed statement.

Ground stations, called teleports, will uplink the public bitcoin blockchain data to the satellites in the network, which then broadcast the data to large areas across the globe, the company said.

The network currently consists of three satellites that cover Africa, Europe, South America, and North America. By the end of 2017, Blockstream said it plans to reach almost every person on the planet.

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Bitcoin Is Literally Soaring Into Space After Rocket-Like Surge - Bloomberg

If youve heard about the massive gains being enjoyed by bitcoin recently, then googled the digital currency to see what all the fuss is about, some of the cryptocurrencys investors may want to thank you.

Bitcoin prices show a notably high correlation with Google search trends for the word bitcoin, according to Chris Burniske, a bitcoin expert who was previously a blockchain analyst at ARK Invest.

In a series of tweets, Burniske speculated that an increasing price drives interest in bitcoin, and that interest further drives the price of $BTC, something he joked was a virtuous Satoshi cycle, in reference to Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym used by the mysterious creator, or creators, of bitcoin.

The price of a single bitcoin BTCUSD, +1.08% hit a record high of $4,483.55 on Wednesday, though it subsequently fell 4.2% to trade at $4,196.99. At current levels, it has more than quadrupled thus far this year, up more than 360%, a move that has lifted its total size to $68.7 billion, making it larger than Dow component Caterpillar Inc. CAT, -0.05%

See a chart of the biggest digital currencies in the world

Bitcoins rally has been among the strongest gains seen of any asset in 2017, although Etherbitcoins chief rival, which runs on the Ethereum networkhas soared more than 3,800%.

According to Google trends, the search term bitcoin is reaching peak popularity in August 2017, while searches for ethereum have tapered off. (Bitcoin is in blue in the following chart.)

The growth in bitcoin this year has come alongside growing interest in the overall cryptocurrencies, as well as increased regulatory interest and public debates over how it can manage at its current size. Recently, a new digital currencycalled Bitcoin Casherupted out of the original version to more rapidly process transactions in larger units, an issue related to bitcoin scability.

The gains have been so large that major Wall Street banks have started to weigh in on the nascent sector. Both Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs recently published primers on bitcoin for their clients, while one Morgan Stanley analyst called it a poster child for speculation. The investment bank had previously said that in order for bitcoin to rise furtherit had been trading around $2,750 at the timegovernment regulation would be necessary.

See also: Bitcoin is up over 400% in the past yearwhats stopping it from going mainstream?

Bitcoins evident connection to internet search interestwhen combined with its continuing move into the mainstreammay suggest that prices have nearly unlimited upside potential, something some proponents more or less agree with. John McAfee, the founder of his namesake antivirus software company, as well as a former fugitive and passionate cryptocurrency backer, recently tweeted that he would eat [his] d--k on national television if bitcoin didnt hit $500,000 within three years.

Burniske disputed that general idea, noting that three peaks in Google search trends were accompanied by three of bitcoins six price bubbles.

The virtuous Satoshi cycle can overheat though, as Google search activity divorces from its tight tango with bitcoins price, he tweeted earlier this week.

Burniske defines bitcoin bubbles as the price doubling or more in a 30-day period. That is currently the case, as it was below $2,000 per bitcoin on July 16. After every bubble theres a crash, he tweeted, with some drops exceeding 90%. However, he added that those were *very* different bitcoin markets [emphasis in original] as they had thin liquidity, fragile exchanges, and a fraction of the users and investors, something he suggested could limit downside in the event of another sharp downtrend.

Read this from June: Is bitcoin in a bubble? This metric suggests theres more room to grow

The rest is here:

Bitcoin's rally seems closely tied to something you may do every day - MarketWatch

Bitcoin Prices Smashing New Records as Institutional Demand Gains Traction
Bitcoin prices keep reaching lofty levels in 2017, with no slowdown in sight. The latest Bitcoin record high took out a significant price prediction by Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS) of $3,900 for 2017. And there's still four-and-a-half months left to go in the year. With Bitcoin literally trading in uncharted territory, the investor community is left to wonder, "How high?"

Now that the Bitcoin fork "issue" is over, what happens next? In case you missed it, Bitcoin sank.

The post Why Are Bitcoin Prices Rising Post-Fork? We Make Sense of It All appeared first on Profit Confidential.

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Why Are Bitcoin Prices Rising Post-Fork? We Make Sense of It All

A rule in the original software, released in 2009, limited the number of transactions that could move through the system to about five a second.

In the last two years, an outspoken group of Bitcoin aficionados wanted to see the currency expand quickly to compete with Visa and PayPal.

But that camp faced opposition from the so-called core developers, a few dozens programmers who maintain the basic Bitcoin software, generally on a volunteer basis.

At the end of July, some of the people who wanted Bitcoin to expand quickly broke off and created a rival digital money, known as Bitcoin Cash, that can handle more frequent transactions.

That new currency has attracted a small following, and retained a relatively stable value around $300.

Most Bitcoin investors and companies, however, have stayed with the original Bitcoin network and the core developers who are working on it.

The core developers have come up with their own solution to increase the number of transactions running through the system, known as Segregated Witness, or SegWit.

While SegWit does not expand the network as quickly as Bitcoin Cash, it makes it easier to build services on top of the Bitcoin network, such as the so-called Lightning Network, that will allow for faster transactions.

The biggest backers of the network agreed last week to proceed with SegWit, and it is that agreement, on scaling the network, that is the most obvious reason for the recent surge.

Scaling has been the major catalyst for the price rally, said Charles Hayter, the founder of the data company CryptoCompare. The scaling debate has certainly been holding the Bitcoin price back.

Many backers of the core developers have said that Bitcoin is more likely to be a base layer that other services are built atop. In this vision, Bitcoin would be more like gold in the old gold standard than like a payment network.

The gold analogy and the scarcity of Bitcoin the rules of the network dictate that only 21 million will ever be created have led some investors to believe that the value of the currency will continue to rise as more people look to store their wealth in the system.

This vision has caught particular fire in Japan and South Korea, which have accounted for an increasing proportion of all Bitcoin trading this year, taking over from China, which once was responsible for the highest trading volume.

The introduction of SegWit does not resolve all of the arguments that have divided the Bitcoin community.

Many large Bitcoin companies are still hoping to follow through with an agreement, reached in the spring, that would change the Bitcoin software in November to allow twice as many transactions to flow through the network.

The core developers have made it clear in various forums that they do not plan to update the software in November to double the network capacity. When the November deadline is reached, some of the companies hoping to double the network capacity could again split off from the core developers.

There is a history of animosity between Bitcoin factions with vested interests, and these tensions could flare up again, Mr. Hayter said.

For now, though, Bitcoin has been rising steadily, and much faster than any of the competing virtual currencies that have cropped up in recent years.

Earlier in the year, the prices of many other virtual currencies were rising faster than the price of Bitcoin, most of all Ethereum, a virtual currency that has more programmable features than Bitcoin.

The price of Ethereum has been rising this month, but more slowly than Bitcoin and it remains below the record high it reached in June. On Monday, the price stood around $300.

Investors are buying Ethereum and Bitcoin to invest in so-called initial coin offerings, a new method of fund-raising in which entrepreneurs create and sell their own virtual currencies.

Such offerings have continued to come onto the market despite warnings from regulators that some of them may violate securities laws.

A version of this article appears in print on August 15, 2017, on Page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: The Price of Bitcoin Surges After an Agreement on a Key Software Update.

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Bitcoin Price Surges After Agreement on Software Update - New York Times

Bitcoin's latest leap higher brings the digital currency closer to a near-term top, Goldman Sachs' chart analyst said.

The digital currency is riding a "fifth wave" of an "impulsive" rally that could run as high as $4,827 in the short term, technical analyst Sheba Jafari said in a Sunday report of charts to watch for the week ahead.

However, "once a full five-wave sequence is in place, the market should in theory enter a corrective phase," she said. "This can last at least one-third of the time it took to complete the preceding advance and retrace at least 38.2 percent of the entire move."

At the time of the report's publication, Jafari said that correction could take bitcoin down to around $2,221.

Bitcoin is nearing its target for the "fifth wave" that theoretically leads to a correction

Source: Goldman Sachs

Bitcoin hit a record high of $4,348.23 on Monday, according to CoinDesk, quadrupling in value for the year. That leaves just 11 percent in gains for bitcoin before hitting the high end of Jafari's forecast.

Already at above $4,300, bitcoin trades well beyond the $4,133 price that Jafari identified as possibly "a level from which to watch for signs of a near-term consolidation."

Although Jafari didn't explicitly name it, the five-wave principle of technical analysis is known as the "Elliott Wave." In July, The Elliott Wave Theorist newsletter also pointed out that bitcoin is "making a final fifth wave from six cents" after predicting the digital currency's surge seven years ago.

That said, other analysts predict bitcoin can climb into the tens of thousands in the next few years. They expect that growing investor interest in a digital currency with a limited circulation of 21 million coins should naturally drive prices higher.

Bitcoin would also have to fall under $2,935 "to signal that a top is already in place," Jafari said in the report.

Dramatic price swings of several hundred dollars or more are not uncommon in the digital currency world. In the month after hitting a prior record of $3,025 in mid-June, bitcoin lost more than $1,000, before rallying to all-time highs in the last two weeks.

Analysts attributed the gains to investor optimism about bitcoin after the uneventful bitcoin split on Aug. 1 into bitcoin and bitcoin cash, as well as greater interest from institutional investors.

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Goldman Sachs says bitcoin may rise about $500 more, before losing half its value - CNBC

Bitcoin hit another record Monday, but commodities whiz Dennis Gartman still isn't buying.

"It is a punter's dream," Gartman told CNBC's "Fast Money." "I give them credit for that, but it is something that I will absolutely stay away from, have stayed away from it, didn't understand it to begin with, don't understand it now."

Gartman said he appreciates bitcoin's introduction of blockchain technology. However, the cryptocurrency's price fluctuates too much to convince him to invest.

"What bothers me is that something that can move 5, 10, 15, 18 percent in the course of the day for what's supposed to be a pricing mechanism," Gartman said. "How can you buy a house? How can you buy a car? How can you buy Starbucks with bitcoin when the price is going to fluctuate as [dramatically] as it has?"

When bitcoin was introduced, it was supposed to be better than common currencies like the dollar or euro because it was supposed to be finite, Gartman said. Now, it's become an infinite currency, he said, and that's a big problem.

"We'll walk in one day and this will all have ended," he said. "And it will end very badly."

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Dennis Gartman shares why he is staying away from bitcoin: 'Don't ... - CNBC

Longtime stock researcher Ronnie Moas raised his price target on bitcoin by $2,500 on Monday after the digital currency hit all-time highs over the weekend.

"What's happening is the floodgates are opening," Moas, founder of Standpoint Research, said in a phone interview with CNBC on Monday. "I believe there are hedge funds and very deep-pocketed individuals going into this now, really hundreds of millions of dollars."

Moas first laid out his views on bitcoin's potential in early July and issued a formal report at the end of last month with a price target of $5,000 for next year.

He told clients Monday he now expects bitcoin to hit climb nearly 80 percent from the weekend's records to $7,500, and maintained the digital currency could surge to $50,000 in 2027 representing a 28 percent annual compounded growth rate.

Bitcoin three-month performance

Source: CoinDesk

After bitcoin's uneventful split into bitcoin and bitcoin cash on Aug. 1, bitcoin has soared more than 40 percent to all-time highs.

Bitcoin climbed 5 percent Monday morning to a record high of $4,321.08, more than quadruple in value for the year, according to CoinDesk. At that price, the digital currency has gained about 50 percent in August.

As institutional investor interest in bitcoin grows, Moas expects digital currencies to become part of "strategic reserves" and "asset allocation models in the near future." He also said people in foreign countries will likely want to buy digital currencies as a more stable alternative to their national currencies.

"You can't look at this as a normal situation," he said. "We're in an industry that will probably go from $140 billion to $2 trillion and the bitcoin price will probably move with that."

The total market value of more than 800 digital coins listed on CoinMarketCap.com has climbed from around $20 billion at the start of this year to about $140 billion on Monday. Bitcoin accounts for about half of that value.

Year-to-date change in global value of digital currencies

Source: CoinMarketCap

Another digital currency, ethereum, traded 1 percent higher near $307, according to CoinDesk. Ethereum has shot up more than 3,000 percent this year.

Bitcoin cash, an alternative version of bitcoin supported by a minority of developers, held steady near $300, according to CoinMarketCap.

Moas told CNBC that 100 percent of his investments are in digital currencies, with the majority in bitcoin and ethereum. He said he never invested in the stocks he issued reports on.

He added in his Monday note to clients:

"Any way that I look at these numbers, my forecasts are looking conservative. It looks to me as though we are at the same point in the adoption curve as we were in 1995 when we went from one million internet users to ten million. The following year the Netscape browser came online and we went from 10 million users to hundreds of millions of users overnight.

I expect that within a couple of years we will have between 50 and 100 million cryptocurrency users -- up from approximately ~10 million today. We only have 0.15% market penetration right now -- if that goes to 2% or 3% we will get to the $50,000 price target that I set at the beginning of July."

To be sure, many note that bitcoin remains like the Wild West compared with the established Wall Street market.

"People should understand they're not dealing with the NYSE right now. There's no regulation, there's no face that you can attach to these exchanges," Moas told CNBC, noting his digital currency holdings are spread across five exchanges.

Bitcoin lost more than half its value in 2014 as Mt.Gox, then the largest exchange by far, said it lost about 850,000 bitcoins (worth about half a billion U.S. dollars at the time) and filed for bankruptcy.

This July, the U.S. Department of Justice alleged in an indictment that a "sizeable portion" of the Mt.Gox losses were deposited in accounts controlled, owned and operated by an exchange called BTC-e and a Russian national named Alexander Vinnik. Vinnik was arrested in late July.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Standpoint's Ronnie Moas raises bitcoin price target to $7,500 - CNBC