While a Texas Senate candidate is accepting Bitcoin campaign donations, and Overstock.com customers can use the technology to buy engagementrings, Wall Street sees its future more as a payment system than a currency.
Either way, it’s been a profitable investment. Created in 2008, Bitcoin’s value took off last year, leaping about 60-fold in the past 12 months to $936.51 yesterday, with prices ranging from $16 to more than $1,200, according to bitcoincharts.com. Gold plunged 26 percent in the same period, while the second best-performing major currency, the 18-nation euro, climbed 7.3 percent versus a basket of its major peers.
Related:
- Did Ukrainians Almost Take Over Bitcoin?
- Bitcoin Woos Washington to Ensure Lawmakers Don’t Kill It
- Bitcoin Banned by Alibaba’s Taobao
While its supporters have embraced Bitcoin as an alternative to currencies vulnerable to sovereign debasement, China’s central bank has banned lenders from handling the virtual money and Finland’s authorities said it lacks the characteristics of a real currency. Citigroup Inc., the second-largest foreign-exchange trader, said Bitcoin could benefit society if it eases transactions, even though about 1 percent of owners hold some 80 percent of the digital money.
“Bitcoin, in essence, is just an evolution of a payment system,” Sebastien Galy, a New York-based senior foreign-exchange strategist at Societe Generale SA, said by phone Jan. 14. “The ultimate concept of transaction, the innovation, is certainly progress in the means of transaction.”
Source: Bloombersg
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Download our App: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pinbitcoins/id778624008?ls=1&mt=8
No comments:
Post a Comment