The virtual currency barrelled to new highs to rise more than 400 percent over the past year, before promptly sliding some 20 percent and then settling around $36,000.<\/p>\n
When it started life in 2009 as open-source software, bitcoin was essentially worth zero -- though within a year it had reached the heady heights of eight cents.<\/p>\n
At today's market rates, bloated by a surge in institutional demand, the digital unit's market capitalisation is worth some $670 billion with myriad other crypto coins such as ethereum lifting the sector nominally close to the trillion mark.<\/p>\n
Although that's small potatoes compared to the $68 trillion or so swilling around world stock markets, it is nonetheless the sort of financial territory staked out by Wall Street tech royalty such as Google, Apple or Tesla.<\/p>\n
One tech site, AssetDash.com, notes that bitcoin is currently worth around as much as Facebook and a little more than Chinese e-retail giant Alibaba.<\/p>\n
- Curse of the forgotten password -<\/p>\n
Although deep-pocketed investors have recently become enthusiasts, crypto was in its early days the preserve of geeky amateur investors.<\/p>\n
It is the latter who have mainly suffered as an estimated four million of the roughly 19 million bitcoin units currently in circulation have been lost.<\/p>\n
\"Lost\" does not mean the coins have fallen down the back of the sofa or through a hole in a trouser pocket: they have been electronically zapped from the record, often because their owner has forgotten a password to coins hoarded on a USB stick.<\/p>\n
One US developer mislaid his password after storing 7,002 bitcoins on one such flash drive, forcing him to wave goodbye, on paper (or rather, the trading screen), to around $280 million.<\/p>\n
This week, Welshman James Howells desperately offered his local authority a quarter of his fortune to dig up a landfill site where he believes a hard drive he accidentally tossed away -- and which has since soared in value to around $270 million -- is buried. The council refused, citing the cost and logistical restrictions.<\/p>\n
According to analysts at JP Morgan, bitcoin may be highly volatile but could go as high as $146,000 per unit, putting it in competition with gold as an asset class in terms of private sector investment.<\/p>\n
That volatility, as well as the unregulated and decentralised nature of the bitcoin beast, are key reasons why many seasoned financial observers are scared off -- as well as the risk of \"losing\" their stash.<\/p>\n
\"Most of the lost bitcoins were acquired in the early days,\" said Philip Gradwell, economist with Chainalysis.<\/p>\n
Gradwell said that around one in five bitcoins in circulation today have not budged from their location in five years -- since days when the unit was worth not much more than $100.<\/p>\n
\"One or two million of those belong to Satoshi himself,\" added Gradwell, referring to the creator of the coin, whose identity remains unknown.<\/p>\n
He added that the bulk of investors are not day-to-day traders, but people making a long-term punt -- and he estimates that the spectacular price boom of recent weeks has involved only around five millions units.<\/p>\n
Patrick Heusser, head of trading at Swiss trader Crypto Broker, said that following the trading volumes of a variety of cryptocurrencies, rather than just bitcoin, would give a better idea of how the market is faring.<\/p>\n
\"Ethereum has a lot of activity on the chain, but on the litecoin side there is almost nothing going on,\" said Heusser, with the former valued at some $138 billion currently, and the latter at $10 billion.<\/p>\n
Heusser suggested the rises have been largely a bitcoin slipstream effect, and he cautioned against drawing parallels with gold.<\/p>\n
\"To be honest I don't believe that it is a very powerful or insightful metric inside what's going on in the crypto market,\" Heusser concluded.<\/p>\n
After years of experience on traditional currency markets, he judged that it was early days for the crypto equivalent.<\/p>\n
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View original post here: The virtual currency barrelled to new highs to rise more than 400 percent over the past year, before promptly sliding some 20 percent and then settling around $36,000. Continue reading
\nAfter dizzying gyrations, what's bitcoin really worth? - Mint<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"