Bitcoin seems unstoppable currently, as it continues to grow despite many experts warning that this could be a bubble which will burst in spectacular fashion soon. Bitcoin has broken records and stolen the headlines again as it reached another all time high recently at a massive value of roughly $18,000.
Having grown over 80 percent in just December, Bitcoin has had its best growth (percentage wise) for a single month since December 2013. Bitcoin has also grown by over 1700 percent in 2017 and has left people worried and curious at the same time about the future of this digital currency.
Although prices continue to rise, Bitcoin’s trading has been a bit more stable and price fluctuation isn’t as bad as it normally is. At the time of this writing, Bitcoin is currently being valued at around $17,600, a drop from its highest but not that big a drop as it would usually drop after a huge surge.
Bitcoin was also seeing a daily change of $2000 before when it broke the $15,000 barrier but that has also slowed down to around $1000 a day as well. Bitcoin’s volatility has been lower since the launch of Bitcoin futures from Cboe Global Markets on Sunday.
According to Charles Hayter, founder of website cryptocompare: “The hope (is) that futures signal the unlocking of institutional money into the digital arena and (that there will be) a rapid demand increase and ratification of the technology and its principles.” However, there are still many that worry about where this is all headed as investment into cryptocurrency increases day by day.
It is believed that Bitcoin could pose a threat to existing currencies (fiat currencies) and their markets. Larisa Yarovaya, a lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University claims that due to the speculative demand of Bitcoin, it’s price has been inflated by a large extent causing a bubble to form.
The increasing demand for Bitcoin means the decreasing demand for holding traditional currencies, it is feared that these currencies might face difficulties if this carries on.
“Although bitcoin is not regulated by governments, it could still have a knock-on effect on traditional markets due to the interconnectedness of cryptocurrency markets with other financial assets.”
However, it is also argued that Bitcoin’s current market cap is not large enough to have that big an effect on traditional currencies as it sits at over $300 billion. So, a collapse in the market wouldn’t have that big of a knock off effect on the financial market as many people claim it would.
It was reported by BBC late on Thursday that Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority’s head, Andrew Bailey, has warned Bitcoin buyers about the possibility that they could very well loose all their money.
The current charts, graphs or however you’d like to put it, all of them look very familiar. They look very similar to when a market bubble is about to crash. Is Bitcoin headed towards the same fate very soon? Andrew Bailey thinks so as well with that statement.
Many people have questioned the strength of the cryptocurrency market infrastructure as well due to several outages in some of the world’s largest exchanges this week. These outages left millions of investors unable to access their funds during the times of the day when trading volumes are high. This undoubtedly led to frustration and people questioning the weak infrastructure of the markets.
Despite all these concerns, Bitcoin continues to rise. Now with the opening of the futures, Bitcoin will likely continue to grow but just what is the limit? With many experts claiming that Bitcoin will even cross $50,000 in 2018, will Bitcoin ever stabilize? Is a market crash imminent? Only time will tell, for now, Bitcoin continues smashing records.