Bitcoin prices have set an all-time high above $4,400.

Just an hour after the August 15 session opened, the average price of bitcoin was up across global exchanges, rising from an opening total of $4,382. At press time, the price continued to edge upward, following a day in which in gained more than $200, rising to $4,382 from $4,111 on Sunday.

Week-over-week, price gains were even more impressive, with the value of the cryptocurrency rising just over 30% from $3,382 at the end of trading aweek ago.

The movement comes at a time when institutional investors are beginning to take a new interest in bitcoin and the larger cryptocurrency asset class.

Not only are major investment managers and analysts now tracking the asset, but accredited investors have been seeking to diversify opportunities in the space, investing nearly $200 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) for a blockchain network called filecoin last week, a venture aimed at creating a distributed protocol for file storage.

Also up on the day was the value of all cryptocurrencies issued, with data from Coinmarketcap indicating the asset class is now valued at $141 billion, up nearly 20 percent from $118 billion last week.

Bitcoin 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 Price Tops $4400 As Crypto Market Nears $150 Billion - CoinDesk

A year ago, a single bitcoin BTCUSD, +2.51% was valued at $570. Today, after a dramatic year of big ups and downs, bitcoin is over $4,000 and its market cap has gone over $70 billion for the first time.

If youre struggling to understand how this came to be or just looking to relive the glory (or nightmare, depending on your perspective) come along with us on a trip down meme-ory lane.

First, some history.

As bitcoin legend has it, Satoshi Nakamoto started hashing out the concept of a decentralized digital currency in 2007. To this day, the true identity of the person (or people) behind bitcoin remains a mystery.

In January 2009, the very first bitcoin was created and just days later, the first transaction took place between Nakamoto and crypto activist Hal Finney.

It wasnt until a year later that the very first real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Programmer Laszlo Hanyecz apparently paid 10,000 bitcoin for a pizza. At the time, that was worth only $25.

Still, the bitcoin world remained a mystery to many.

Then, in the summer of 2010, bitcoins value surged tenfold in just five days. Bitcoin fans were thrilled, but the naysayers still werent interested.

In November of that year, bitcoins market cap reached $1 million.

Silk Road opened for business in 2011, and became best known as a bitcoin marketplace for selling illegal drugs on the dark web.

Just a few months after reaching parity with the dollar, bitcoin hit $10 in June 2011.

And still the volatility:

It rallied above $31 before plunging in the crash of 2011 all the way back to single digits. By the time the sellers were through, bitcoin was 93% off its peak.

The bitcoin faithful stood strong, and the recovery began.

Mt. Gox, which became the worlds largest bitcoin exchange after opening in 2010, shut down some four years later amid hacks and security breaches that cast a shadow on the future of cryptocurrencies.

There were eventually calls for the government to ban bitcoin. But bitcoin survived, of course, and more and more cryptocurrencies were created.

Then Donald Trump gets elected president...

... and bitcoin really explodes. Ethereum goes along for the ride, and then some.

Which has some people calling Bubble!

And others, To the Moon!

Even some of the biggest bulls, though, were biting their nails going into the Aug. 1 hard fork that brought about a new version of the currency called Bitcoin Cash. But, fork or no fork, bitcoins rally wouldnt be held down and a week after the split, bitcoin was at an all-time high.

Meanwhile, bitcoin is also gaining a reputation as hackers ransom of choice.

Given all the hoopla, its not so much of a surprise that regulators are finally stepping in.

So, peak bitcoin?

Its yet to be seen, but as cryptocurrencies climb ever higher, the bitcoin faithful feel vindicated, for now...

... and the skeptics are left to consider how to play a crypto future.

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22 internet memes that let you relive bitcoin's historic rise - MarketWatch

At this point, cryptocurrencys year can only be described as ridiculous.

Bitcoin, the original and highest-profile distributed digital currency, has been on a sustained rally since last December. Now it has reached yet another all-time high, hitting $4044 on the CoinMarketCap index as of this writing.

That means an investment in Bitcoin made on January 1st, at a value of $973, would have produced a 315% return today or an annualized return of over 900%.

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The entire cryptocurrency sector has been on a tear this year, as major institutions pursue applications for the underlying blockchain security protocol: Bank of America has filed more than 20 block chain patents and Microsoft is adding blockchain tech to its cloud services. Meanwhile cryptocurrency startups have been raising huge amounts of money, both via traditional channels and through so-called Initial Coin Offerings (which the SEC recently signaled it would crack down on).

Bitcoins latest record high is particularly notable given that valuations for other cryptocurrencies, including stalwarts such as Ethereum and Litecoin, were down in recent days.

This discrepancy is actually a good thing, as it signals that cryptocurrency investors are making substantive choices between the competing systems. Bitcoins fundamentals have made major progress in recent weeks, and Segwit2x, a long-awaited and contentious software upgrade, is on its way to implementation.

Segwit2x will make Bitcoin more usable for individual transactions and as a financial backbone for secondary services. So while there's certainly plenty of dumb money flooding into Bitcoin, theres also more than just mania behind investors continued bullishness.

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Bitcoin Breaks $4000 - Fortune

The price of bitcoin continued its meteoric rise Sunday, crossing the $4,000 mark for the first time.

After cresting as high as $4,200 earlier in the day, bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.62% was at $4,078.08 at 5 p.m. Eastern, up 4.1% for the day, according to Coindesk.com. The price of bitcoin is up more than 40% in August, and more than 280% this year.

It first passed the $2,000 mark in May, and topped $3,000 for the first time in June. Bitcoin has surged to a number of new records in the past two weeks, since the digital currency split and created a new currency, Bitcoin Cash.

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

The value of cryptocurrencies overall has gained $11 billion in market cap in just the past two days, according to Coinmarketcap.com, topping out Sunday at a record $137 billion. Bitcoins share of that is more than $66 billion, another record.

Asian investors were responsible for much of bitcoins weekend gains, as investors sought safe havens as tensions between the U.S. and North Korea heat up. The Japanese yen was behind about 46% of Sundays global bitcoin trade volume, according to Cryptocompare.com. South Korea and China each made up about 12% of global volume.

Bitcoins weekend gains came at the expense of its rival digital currencies. Ethereums ether was down nearly 5% to $295.42 on Sunday, according to Coindesk.com, Ripple declined almost 4% and Bitcoin Cash slipped 4.3%.

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Bitcoin surges past $4000, sets more records - MarketWatch

The digital currency bitcoin vaulted to a new record high above $4000 on Saturday, boosted by strong Japanese demand on its way to multiplying its value fourfold this year.

Bitcoin traded as high as $4,000.93, more than 7 percent higher near $3,941 in Saturday dealings, according to CoinDesk.

The digital currency has now quadrupled in 2017, and is up about 40 percent in August alone. Bitcoin's market value is now around $64 billion, up about $10 billion in the last week.

Bitcoin trade in Japanese yen accounted for nearly 46 percent of global trade volume, up from about a third a day ago, according to CryptoCompare. US-dollar bitcoin trade accounted for about 25 percent, according to CryptoCompare. Bitcoin trade in Chinese yuan and South Korean won accounted for about 12 percent each.

Bitcoin rose in the last week, mirroring gold's climb amid a global selloff in stocks and bonds. Rising worries about North Korea's nuclear threat have sent investors flocking to perceived safe-havens and alternative assets.

Analysts have also noted increased investor interest, especially from institutional investors, after bitcoin successfully survived an Aug. 1 split into bitcoin and bitcoin cash.

This week, Fidelity launched a feature allowing customers to also view their Coinbase bitcoin holdings. The currency also got a boost from Goldman Sachs, which in a report released this week said it is harder for institutional investors to ignore cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

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Bitcoin vaults to new record above $4K, boosted by Japan and multiplying its value fourfold - CNBC

On August 1, the digital currency Bitcoin split into two derivative currencies, Bitcoin Classic (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Far from being a rushed spinoff, as Blockstream Chief Strategy Officer Samson Mows August 7 op-ed in Fortune claims , the split was a long time coming.

The origins of the debate can be traced back to 2010, when a one megabyte per 10 minutes limit was quietly added into the Bitcoin codebase as a spam control measure. Because the value of a bitcoin was so low at the time, trading for pennies each, the limit was intended to prevent would-be attackers from overloading the network with a flood of cheap transactions.

This one simple variable gradually led to the emergence of two competing factions within the Bitcoin industry. One side wanted the limit raised to allow Bitcoin to scale with growing demand, while the other side claimed that allowing Bitcoin to grow too quickly would result in its centralization and shift to corporate control.

As the Bitcoin network grew in popularity, this one megabyte limit started being pushed up against in late 2016, but through organic network growth rather than by a flood of maliciously generated transactions. The result was that Bitcoin found itself unable to absorb increased demand: Every transaction would now be at the expense of another, and a fee bidding war drove the average transaction fee from pennies to a peak of more than $5 in June 2017.

Many worried that such high fees would hinder Bitcoins growing adoption and use, disenfranchising most of the worlds actual Bitcoin users, leaving only price speculators and those willing to pay high fees to transact in bitcoin.

After years spent at loggerheads with the other faction, the Bitcoin Cash supporters decided that rather than try to morph Bitcoin to their wishes, they would simply create a split of the ledger and let the market decide. The Bitcoin Classic chain retains the one megabyte limit and the legacy ticker symbol, BTC, while the Bitcoin Cash chain has increased the limit to eight megabytes and adopted a new ticker symbol, BCH (alternatively BCC, depending on who you ask).

Any person holding bitcoin at the time of the split on August 1 received identical amounts of each new coin at the time of the split. If you had one Bitcoin at the end of July, youd now have one BTC and one BCH in August. Rather than causing a market upset, the split achieved the desirable outcome of allowing both visions of Bitcoin to compete in the free market.

Many have decided to sell one side of the split to buy more of the other side, but more conservative holders can benefit from holding both and refraining from speculation. Preventing either of the two ideologically divided camps from pursuing their vision does no one any favors: Both camps were stuck with a version of Bitcoin they viewed as suboptimal. The split allows each coin to develop and grow in the way its supporters believe to be best.

And the markets seem to agree. The price of both tokens combined is now greater than the price of one Bitcoin before the split. In the long term, expect to see market demand coalesce around one of the two coins. Bitcoin has always belonged to the free marketmay the best coin win!

Jake Smith is a manager at Bitcoin.com .

Continued here:

The Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork Will Show Us Which Coin Is Best - Fortune

Imagining the future of blockchain technology is like trying to imagine Google and Facebook on the day the first web browser came out, said Hadley Stern, senior vice president at Fidelity Labs.

Stern is responsible for running Fidelity's bitcoin, blockchain and digital currency incubator. His research team has been experimenting with bitcoin because he said it is like "digital gold" and that "blockchain technology will change the world."

The corporation announced Wednesday that it started allowing clients to view bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on its website, making it one of the few established institutions that have warmed up to cryptocurrencies.

"The big story is you can transfer value through software and software alone. This is a huge societal breakthrough," Stern said on CNBC's "Closing Bell."

And regardless of whether bitcoin will survive, it could be like the Napster of blockchain technology, Stern said, where it is the first of its kind but the next products, in this case Spotify and Apple Music, get better and better.

"I do think [cryptocurrencies] will make things, whether it's bitcoin or something else, faster and cheaper and create new products and services that we can't even imagine," Stern said.

While some critics are skeptical of how bitcoin is used, Stern said that banning the cryptocurrency would be like banning the web or open internet protocols.

"Whether governments like it or not, it's here to stay," he said.

Stern did emphasize though that Fidelity's move does not mean their clients can make bitcoin transactions through their corporation, saying "we're not necessarily making a judgment on bitcoin." It is just a way for clients to view their bitcoin balances alongside their accounts.

Bitcoin reached an all-time high of around $3,500 Friday, up more than 20 percent for the week.

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'Blockchain technology will change the world': Fidelity Labs SVP - CNBC

Bitcoin's gains followed an uneventful split last week into bitcoin and bitcoin cash, an upgrade proposal supported by a minority of developers. This week, an overwhelming majority of developers signaled their support for a more popular upgrade called Segregated Witness, or SegWit.

"With SegWit locked in, and an effective split between two camps with differing visions for the asset (BTC and BCH), it is now experiencing a relief rally," said Chris Burniske, author of the upcoming book, "Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor's Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond."

"A greater number of entities, including institutions, are waking up to bitcoin's merits as a currency that is uncorrelated to the traditional capital markets," he said.

Many digital currency enthusiasts believe bitcoin will one day become "digital gold" amid the rise of other cryptocurrencies. The supply of bitcoin is limited to 21 million, but demand for the digital currency remains high as it's typically the way for new investors to participate in the growing, larger world of cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin already trades at nearly three times the price of gold.

Some Wall Street analysts have also published research in the last several weeks noting how bitcoin could rise several thousand dollars if even a small percentage of holdings in gold, stocks and bonds flowed into the digital currency.

U.S. stocks remain close to their all-time highs, and many strategists expect a deeper pullback soon due to seasonal factors and overextended prices. The S&P 500 closed below its 50-day moving average Thursday for the first time since July 6, led by declines in technology stocks.

Stocks were slightly higher Friday, but the Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) remained 0.8 percent lower for the week, tracking for its worst week since the end of June. The S&P 500 was on pace for a decline of about 1.3 percent for the week, its worst in at least four months.

That said, there's no guarantee the digital currency can keep climbing even if it's survived this summer's controversy over the best way to upgrade the bitcoin network. The second phase of Segregated Witness is set to take place in November and could result in yet another split in the digital currency.

"Every day sees new buyers entering the market, and as the price rises, owners of Bitcoin only become more bullish," Ari Paul, CIO of cryptocurrency investment firm BlockTower Capital, told CNBC in an email. "This trend may continue until there's an exogenous shock to entice new sellers."

Another digital currency, ethereum, was little changed around $300 Friday, according to CoinDesk.

The bitcoin offshoot, bitcoin cash, traded 13 percent higher near $330, according to CoinMarketCap.

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Bitcoin surges to fresh record above $3500, beats gold amid the global market sell-off - CNBC

The average price of bitcoin across global exchanges today reached $3,550 on the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index, setting yet another new all-time high.

The uptick coincides with a palpable improvement in public sentiment about the world's first cryptographic asset, with bitcoin recently receiving positive mentions from leading asset managers and gaining increasing exposure in western media.

At press time, bitcoin was trading at $3,550, a figure that has appreciated nearly 50% over the last month of trading. Data from the CoinDesk BPI indicates the price of bitcoin was just $2,423 on June 12.

Yet, the strongest growth has been seen in the last week,following a fork of the bitcoin blockchain that resulted in the creation of a new cryptocurrency, bitcoin cash.

Perhaps most notably, bitcoin is up nearly 25% on the week since the split, rising from $2,871 seven days prior, while bitcoin cash, the new blockchain, has climbed just 17%, rising to $340 from $290 one week ago.

The interplay between the two currencies will no doubt be one to watch, as it could change attitudes toward blockchain forks and provide an illustration of how cryptocurrency markets will respond to technical changes in the future.

Bitcoin 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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The Bitcoin Price Just Inched Up to Set Another All-Time High - CoinDesk

If youve been hearing or reading a lot about blockchain but you still arent entirely certain how to define it, youre not alone. Its something that Jack Dorsey, the chief executive officer and chairman of Square (and CEO of Twitter), describes as the next big unlock, something that, he notes, is normally applied to accounting terms but has the potential to be applied to so much more.

In an interview earlier this week at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, I had the chance to ask Dorsey about Squares business, the future of banking, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and more.

Blockchain is often defined as a ledger that enables secure, encrypted transactions. Some financial and technical experts have described it as analogous to the early days of the internet: its a framework or backbone for transactions, while the various use cases for it are analogous to apps on the internet as we know them today.

But Dorsey also went beyond that interpretation of it, adding that the ability to distribute and decentralize the ledger enables proof of work, and proof of one entity, in an untrusted network. Even if theres a hostile entity or a mistrust in the network, Dorsey said, we can still account for value creation and the transfer of values as well.

There are so many problems we can help solve [with blockchain] that are not just related to finance, but finance is an obvious one, he added.

There are so many problems we can help solve that are not just related to finance.

However, the availability of blockchain technology doesnt necessarily mean that everyone should jump on the blockchain bandwagon. I think there are going to be a bunch of people who say, Blockchain, lets go apply it everywhere and Lets try to solve every single problem with it, Dorsey said, in the same way that we try to solve every problem with machine learning and data science and deep learning and artificial intelligence. And I think we need to be more thoughtful. What are people struggling with? How does the technology help them progress or does it distract them?

Dorsey also spoke about bitcoin, which Square has accepted as a form of payment since the fall of 2014. Dorsey also admitted he has personally invested in Bitcoin, though he didnt share how many bitcoins he holds.

He said one of the most surprising things hes experienced recently is when friends and family, who arent as close to the technology industry, have been asking about bitcoin specifically, how to invest in the cryptocurrency.

Im from St. Louis, Missouri, and I have a lot of friends and family who are not into technology, Dorsey said. Over the holidays, one of the things I kept getting asked by people I know is, You work in technology, you work in finance, how do I buy bitcoin? I asked, Why do you want to buy bitcoin? And they said, Well I heard its a fast easy way to make money... someone said its like digital gold.

Dorsey went on to discuss the benefits of and potential problems with investing in a digital asset that is decentralized, deflationary, and in general, unlike any other traditional stock market securities. The full video is below. Its a long discussion, but its a rare in-depth conversation with an entrepreneur who has firmly established himself as a disruptor in more than one industry.

Watch Square CEO Jack Dorsey in Conversation with The Verges Senior Technology Editor Lauren Goode. Hes talking about why he started the digital payments company, his approach to innovation in financial services and his vision for the future of commerce. Please submit your questions during the live program in the comments below. #CHMLive

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Square founder Jack Dorsey talks bitcoin and says blockchain is the 'next big unlock' - The Verge

Russia is planning to expand its bitcoin-mining industry to rival China as the world's largest mining market, according to Bloomberg reports.

Bitcoin consultants warn that if Russia looks at regulating Bitcoin, this could potentially affect the price and widespread support for Bitcoin within the investing community. It is also important to note that Russia does not see Bitcoin as a currency but as a digital asset.

Another huge announcement involves Bitcoin company Russian Miner Coin (RMC), which is hoping to is raise $100 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) and in turn promising buyers a right to 18% of the company's mining revenue.

Michael Parsons, a bitcoin entrepreneur at the UK Digital Currency Association, explains the Russian authorities have been trying over the years to ban bitcoin. But this view softened over the last year or so, hence movements from RMC and others. That's, in part, a result of a shift in how Bitcoin is viewed.

"Earlier this year, Elvira Nabiullina, governor of the Russian Central Bank, explained that she views bitcoin as a digital asset rather than a virtual currency, and this is how Bitcoin should be thought about with regards to future regulation," Parsons said.

It is expected Russia will rival China -- but how exactly will Russian Bitcoin mining impact the space?

"By moving into Bitcoin mining, Russia would support the mining decentralization of Bitcoin, providing an additional significant Bitcoin mining participation to balance the mining by other large groups and mining pools especially the large bitcoin mining farms concentrated in China," Parsons said.

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"Then, by accumulating bitcoin through its own mining, Russia may also consider bitcoin to be recognized as a potential reserve digital currency," he added. "And, if Russia looked at regulating bitcoin, this could potentially affect the price and support for bitcoin."

Currencies have a geopolitical impact.

"As cryptocurrencies create a new asset class that does not depend on any government, it makes sense for governments to try to enter that space," said a Bitcoin expertwho requested anonymity. "Currency and payment systems have a geopolitical impact. For instance, at end of 2014 Visa and Mastercard suspended operations in Crimea following U.S. sanctions."

The source explained that BCash can be seen as a Chinese version of Bitcoin, and RMC a Russian version of Bitcoin.

The Bank of England has also studied a national blockchain. Promoting local champions is also a good strategy to develop skills and competencies that may become critical in the future.

"Governments can also invest into large industry players through venture capital funds and influence the industry through regulation," the source added. "The European Union fourth AML directive defines new rules for crypto currency custodians."

In the beginning, RMC is expected to rely on Bitfury chips. Bitfury is a company that manufactures mining equipment and also operates its own mining operations, was founded by Valery Vavilov, a Russian-speaking native of Latvia.

"In the case of RMC, the partnership with Bitfury, a large and well established Bitcoin miner operating in 18 countries, is significant," the source said. "RMC will be able to get to market much faster by using BitFury data centers and technology, while developing its own homemade mining equipment. It is not clear why Bitfury is selling these profitable Bitcoin mining assets."

For those looking to keep track of Bitcoin's price trajectory, Russia will inevitably be an essential piece of the puzzle.

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Russia Is Secretly Plotting to Expand Bitcoin Mining Industry to Take on China - TheStreet.com

Investopedia

Is NVIDIA Too Dependent on Bitcoin? Investopedia All summer, shares of the semiconductor maker have been rising with the price of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin and, to a lesser extent, Ethereum. The boom in the price of the digital currency has brought more people into the market who are using high-end ... Wall Street Fears Nvidia Is Too Dependent on BitcoinFortune all 269 news articles »

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Is NVIDIA Too Dependent on Bitcoin? - Investopedia

Bitcoin has gone on bull runs before but nothing like this: Prices this week shot through the $3,500 mark as the mainstream media hailed digital currency as a new asset class. Then it got another boost as the blue chip brokerage house, Fidelity, allowed its customers to create bitcoin accounts.

Now, some people are calling for it go even higher. As Quartz reports , a Standpoint Research analyst has called a target of $5000 for bitcoin by 2018. This raises the question of whether ordinary investors should put a smidgen of their savings, or even their retirement accounts, into buying bitcoin. (Keep in mind you don't have to buy a whole bitcoin. Since it's digital, you can buy a hundred millionth of onethis tiny unit is called a Satoshi after bitcoin's creator.)

There are strong arguments to buyand also strong ones to stay the heck away. Here are three of each.

Major investors and the financial industry is taking it seriously

Since its creation in 2008, Bitcoin's biggest boosters have been computer geeks and libertarians. But recently, they've been joined by a growing number of mainstream investors and entrepreneurs who see bitcoinand other digital currenciesas a legitimate asset class such as stocks, bonds, or commodities.

In 2017 alone, famous names like Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital have bet on hedge funds that are investing hundreds of millions of dollars into digital currency funds. Meanwhile, the financial infrastructure to support bitcoin and other digital currency is maturing rapidly: Coinbase's GDAX exchange has supported margin trading since March, while the Commodity Future Trading Commission just gave the green light for firms to sell digital currency options and other derivatives.

There is only a limited amount of bitcoin

One reason to buy bitcoins are a valuable asset is that only 21 million of them will ever come into the worldand most of them are already here. As those familiar with bitcoin know, the number of coins created by the mining process drops by half every few years. Right now, around 80% of all bitcoins are already mined and no new ones will appear after the year 2040. This scarcity could continue to drive up demand, especially if (as has been rumored ), central banks decide to start buying them as foreign currency reserves.

Some see bitcoin as the new gold

So-called gold bugs like to own the precious metal because it is an asset whose value is not controlled by governments. Even if a country is ravaged by war or its profligate central bank prints too much money, the value of gold (unlike the national currency) will remain. Bitcoin has many of the same qualities. It exists on a decentralized computer network that transcends national borders, and there is no Federal Reserve-like authority that can devalue it.

This isn't a definitive reason to buy bitcoin any more than it is to buy gold. But an analyst cited by Quartz predicts the gold bugs will become bitcoin bugs instead, which means a lot of money flowing into the digital currency.

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Bitcoin's core users are still criminals and fringe figures

For years, stores like Overstock and Subway have accepted bitcoin as payment alongside cash and credit cards. But despite the promise of true believers that bitcoin could replace cash one day, there is no evidence this will happen. The reality is bitcoin is too slow compared to visa or debit cards, and transaction fees are rising. Right now, you can pay a fee and wait ten minutes for your bitcoin transaction to clearor swipe a credit card to pay instantly and get a cash reward.

Because of these limitations, bitcoin's core use remains what's it's always been: paying for drugs or extortion fees on the Internet. For instance, the cyber-criminals who launched a recent wave of " ransomware " attacks known as WannaCry asked for payment in bitcoin .

Ordinary consumers, meanwhile, are not using it as a payment method. That doesn't mean its not valuable as an investmentjust that, in the real world, it's even less useful than gold.

Bitcoin is extremely volatile

Over its nearly decade-long history, bitcoin has been prone to spectacular crashes. In 2013, for instance, the currency went on a run to over $1,100 only to tank to $700 a few months later, and then bottom out near $200 in early 2015. There is no reason this couldn't happen again.

While investors may drool at $5,000 bitcoin, they better be equally ready to kick themselves if it tumbles back to $2,000 or lower this year. This goes double for the many other so-called alt-currencies (other digital currencies some people buy as a proxy investment for bitcoin.)

Bitcoin only exists on computers

This may sound obvious but, as a form of money, bitcoin might be the most intangible stuff in history. Even paper money or securities can be presented to a central bank or company in the hopes someone will redeem them. No such possibility with bitcoin. Digital currency is just a piece of code out there on the Internet (or in special digital storage vaults to prevent hackers from stealing it), and there is no country or company you can ask to honor it.

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$5000 Bitcoin? 3 Reasons to Buyand to Stay Away - Fortune

Bitcoin Hard Fork and Ethereum Hard Fork
Stock splits are not uncommon. Usually undertaken when a company’s shares rise to an undesirable value that is too high—and therefore may dissuade smaller investors—stock splits are a great way to create hype around a company and also encourage investment. In cryptocurrencies, however, splits are entirely different.

Between the Bitcoin hard fork (the term used to describe a split in cryptocurrencies) and the Ethereum hard fork, we’ve seen two of the heaviest hitters on the market place fracture into entirely new coins, which only creates more volatility and presents more options to investors. Seeing as how the Ethereum (ETH).

The post ETH vs. BTC Split: What Ethereum Hard Fork Says About Bitcoin Cash Price 2018 appeared first on Profit Confidential.

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ETH vs. BTC Split: What Ethereum Hard Fork Says About Bitcoin Cash Price 2018

It is mainly the new "token" cryptocurrencies that are issued in ICOs with no regulatory oversight, which have exploded since the start of the year, that are causing the most anxiety.

One, the "Useless Ethereum Token", which appears to have been set up as a way of showing how worthless many of the ICOs really are, is nonetheless changing hands for 3 cents a unit. "No value, no security, and no product. Just me, spending your money," its website states.

"It's just so easy to raise money on an ICO right now, it just feels like there's a gold rush going on there," said Moffat. "Some of the new currencies - beyond bitcoin and Ethereum - could crash to zero."

By mid-July, about $1.1 billion had been raised in ICOs this year, roughly 10 times more than that in the whole of 2016, according to cryptocurrency research firm Smith + Crown.

The rapid ascent of ICOs prompted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to warn last month that some ICOs should be regulated like other securities.

This is new digital territory and how the rapidly proliferating cryptocurrency market will play out is anyone's guess.

While critics say the highly correlated nature of the currencies means the weakness of newer entrants could bring the whole house down; others argue market forces will ensure the best players prevail.

"Will some of these (currencies) go away? Of course," said Vias of Ripple.

"We're going to see Darwinism in real-time here. Only the strong will survive."

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Buoyant bitcoin stirs crypto-bubble fears - CNBC

Last updated: 20th March 2015

Bitcoin is a form of digital currency, created and held electronically. No one controls it. Bitcoins arent printed, like dollars or euros theyre produced by people, and increasingly businesses, running computers all around the world, using software that solves mathematical problems.

Its the first example of a growing category of money known as cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin can be used to buy things electronically. In that sense, its like conventional dollars, euros, or yen, which are also traded digitally.

However, bitcoins most important characteristic, and the thing that makes it different to conventional money, is that it is decentralized. No single institution controls the bitcoin network. This puts some people at ease, because it means that a large bank cant control their money.

A software developer called Satoshi Nakamoto proposed bitcoin, which was an electronic payment system based on mathematical proof. The idea was to produce a currency independent of any central authority, transferable electronically, more or less instantly, with very low transaction fees.

No one. This currency isnt physically printed in the shadows by a central bank, unaccountable to the population, and making its own rules. Those banks can simply produce more money to cover the national debt, thus devaluing their currency.

Instead, bitcoin is created digitally, by a community of people that anyone can join. Bitcoins are mined, using computing power in a distributed network.

This network also processes transactions made with the virtual currency, effectively making bitcoin its own payment network.

Thats right. The bitcoin protocol the rules that make bitcoin work say that only 21 million bitcoins can ever be created by miners. However, these coins can be divided into smaller parts (the smallest divisible amount is one hundred millionth of a bitcoin and is called a Satoshi, after the founder of bitcoin).

Conventional currency has been based on gold or silver. Theoretically, you knew that if you handed over a dollar at the bank, you could get some gold back (although this didnt actually work in practice). But bitcoin isnt based on gold; its based on mathematics.

Around the world, people are using software programs that follow a mathematical formula to produce bitcoins. The mathematical formula is freely available, so that anyone can check it.

The software is also open source, meaning that anyone can look at it to make sure that it does what it is supposed to.

Bitcoin has several important features that set it apart from government-backed currencies.

The bitcoin network isnt controlled by one central authority. Every machine that mines bitcoin and processes transactions makes up a part of the network, and the machines work together. That means that, in theory, one central authority cant tinker with monetary policy and cause a meltdown or simply decide to take peoples bitcoins away from them, as the Central European Bank decided to do in Cyprus in early 2013. And if some part of the network goes offline for some reason, the money keeps on flowing.

Conventional banks make you jump through hoops simply to open a bank account. Setting up merchant accounts for payment is another Kafkaesque task, beset by bureaucracy. However, you can set up a bitcoin address in seconds, no questions asked, and with no fees payable.

Well, kind of. Users can hold multiple bitcoin addresses, and they arent linked to names, addresses, or other personally identifying information. However

bitcoin stores details of every single transaction that ever happened in the network in a huge version of a general ledger, called the blockchain. The blockchain tells all.

If you have a publicly used bitcoin address, anyone can tell how many bitcoins are stored at that address. They just dont know that its yours.

There are measures that people can take to make their activities more opaque on the bitcoin network, though, such as not using the same bitcoin addresses consistently, and not transferring lots of bitcoin to a single address.

Your bank may charge you a 10 fee for international transfers. Bitcoin doesnt.

You can send money anywhere and it will arrive minutes later, as soon as the bitcoin network processes the payment.

When your bitcoins are sent, theres no getting them back, unless the recipient returns them to you. Theyre gone forever.

So, bitcoin has a lot going for it, in theory. But how does it work, in practice? Read more to find out how bitcoins are mined, what happens when a bitcoin transaction occurs, and how the network keeps track of everything.

The above table is an advertising unit. For more options, please see our guide to buying bitcoin.

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What is bitcoin? - CoinDesk

Bitcoin will likely outperform stocks and bonds the rest of the year, according to the first major Wall Street strategist to issue a report on the digital currency.

"I think bitcoin is an underowned asset with potential for huge institutional sponsorship coming," Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee said Wednesday on CNBC's "Fast Money."

"It has a lot of characteristics that are very similar to gold that I think will make it ultimately attractive as an alternate currency," he said. "It's a good store of value."

Here's Lee's outlook on bitcoin given on the show into year-end:

Gold or bitcoin? Bitcoin?

"Yes."

Would you rather own bitcoin versus a basket of U.S. stocks?

"Between now and year end it's easily bitcoin."

Will bitcoin be the best performing asset?

"Yes."

Bitcoin leaped to record highs this week above $3,500, more than tripling in value for the year despite a split in the currency last week into bitcoin and bitcoin cash, an alternative version supported by a minority of developers.

Bitcoin traded 1.5 percent higher near $3,428 Thursday morning, according to CoinDesk. Bitcoin cash steadied after wild swings in its first week, trading near $303, according to CoinMarketCap.

Another digital currency, ethereum, rose 1 percent to just under $300, according to CoinDesk.

Bitcoin three-month performance

Source: CoinDesk

Lee published a report in early July outlining the potential for bitcoin to rise above $20,000 and potentially reach $55,000 by 2022. Formerly the top stock strategist at JPMorgan and a perennial favorite of big institutional investors, Lee was also one of the few on Wall Street to predict that a Donald Trump win in last year's election would cause stocks to rally, not fall like most had seen.

Lee sees another reason for optimism about bitcoin.

"Institutions have to directly buy the coin today through a broker, but both the CBOE and the CFTC have opened up options futures trading, so I think it's going to grow in holdings," he told CNBC.

In the last month, the Chicago Board Options Exchange said it plans to offer bitcoin futures by early next year, while the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved a digital currency trading firm called LedgerX to clear derivatives.

Market strategists have noted there are few highly attractive investment opportunities with U.S. stocks at all-time highs and bonds steady as the Federal Reserve remains on a gradual pace of monetary policy tightening and gold in a trading range.

The median S&P 500 target of strategists surveyed by CNBC is 2,475, just a point above where the stock index closed Wednesday. Lee happens to be the most bearish among those strategists with a year-end target of 2,275, or 8 percent below Wednesday's close.

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Top Wall Street strategist expects bitcoin to be the best asset through year-end - CNBC

Two traders are unfazed by bitcoin's meteoric surge and say that between the cryptocurrency and gold, you're better off trading the yellow metal.

Bitcoin has jumped 240 percent this year to a high of $3,288 on Wednesday, while gold was trading at $1,280. But despite the bitcoin gains, Brian Stutland of Equity Armor Investments and Path Trading Partners' Bob Iaccino believe gold is still a better bet than bitcoin from technical and fundamental perspectives.

"When you look at gold over the past couple of months, [it has] tracked very well [relative] to the cryptocurrency," Stutland said Tuesday on CNBC's "Futures Now." "If you price adjust and volatility adjust, I think gold still has a little bit of catching up to do."

As for Iaccino, he believes that while bitcoin's popularity is indisputable, a takeover by another digital currency could be possible, leading him to believe that bitcoin is more unstable than many may think.

"Bitcoin, right now, is the most popular [cryptocurrency] and it is the most valuable one," he said. "But I don't see it as a store of value, because any [other cryptocurrency platform] could come out with a slightly better technology and completely replace bitcoin."

In order to catch up to all the action bitcoin is seeing, Stutland wants to buy gold at the $1,265 level, targeting a move up to $1,285 by December expiration with a stop at $1,250, a key support level that gold has held, according to the trader.

"The volatility is tremendous, so you're going to see wild swings in here and that is something to be aware of," he said.

Gold actually rose more than 1 percent on Wednesday off threats delivered by President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un to one another, the yellow metal being one of the biggest safety trades in times of possible turmoil. Bitcoin, on the other hand, dropped more than 3 percent Wednesday, reversing some of the cryptocurrency's gains from the week

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Bitcoin is almost triple the price of gold here's what traders think ... - CNBC

MarketWatch

Bitcoin retreats from all-time high even as Fidelity debuts digital-currency tracking MarketWatch A single bitcoin was valued at $3,393.76, off by about 2.5%, based on levels from late Tuesday in New York, according to digital-currency research site Coindesk.com. The total market value for the most popular digital currency was at $55.4 billion ... Coinbase Becomes First Bitcoin 'Unicorn'Fortune $100 Million: Coinbase Raises Biggest-Ever Round for Bitcoin StartupCoinDesk Bitcoin Exchange Gets $100 Million InvestmentBloomberg TheStreet.com -Engadget -CNBC -Reuters all 43 news articles »

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Bitcoin retreats from all-time high even as Fidelity debuts digital-currency tracking - MarketWatch

Currently, bitcoin transactions are validated through a process called mining, where powerful computers solve a complex math problem before the transaction is recorded on the blockchain. A whole confirmed transaction can take up to an hour.

The Lightning Network promises to reduce this process to seconds. It requires participants to agree to a transaction on a separate channel and then the blockchain will update their accounts accordingly. This can be done without the need for miners or third parties such as digital wallet providers.

The developers of Lightning say this means transactions can be instant, will allow for micropayments of bitcoin and enable a larger volume of transactions. It may even help bitcoin be used more on the high street.

"Lightning can be used at retail point-of-sale terminals, with user device-to-device transactions, or anywhere instant payments are needed," the developers said in a summary document.

Lightning will make bitcoin a long-term competitive payment platform and could revolutionize peer-to-peer payments, according to Gatecoin's Menant.

"Particularly with regards to micropayment transactions that may be useful for emerging markets with low-value local currencies," he said.

"It can also be implemented to facilitate machine to machine payments, using its smart contract framework, so that firms running various automated processes can benefit from direct payment relationships between its software and that of its clients or suppliers."

Read more:

As bitcoin comes off its record high, the next step is to avoid a 'lightning fork' - CNBC