Articles about Bitcoin

The price of Bitcoin continues to rise, with the cryptocurrency now trading at over $4,000. It's only a matter of days since the price set at record when it passed $3,500, but this has now been broken already.

The surge has been driven by Japanese interest in the currency, and trading currently stands at just under $4,200. After something of a wobbly period, the rise in Bitcoin has been fuelled by investors seeing it as a quick way to make a healthy return.

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After a brief period of instability, Bitcoin is back on the path of setting new price records. The most valuable cryptocurrency broke the $3,500 mark today, rising by over 16 percent since mid-June when its price went past $3,000.

Since the beginning of the month, Bitcoin has slowly increased in price, despite the creation of Bitcoin Cash on August 1 as a result of a hard fork on the network, gaining around $600 in value.

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Things took a turn for the worse in the cryptocurrency market after the price of Bitcoin broke the $3,000 barrier in mid-June. All the major coins posted significant losses, leading the market to shed tens of billions of dollars in value in a really short period of time. The flippening? Well, that didn't happen. Ethereum crashed even harder than Bitcoin, dropping from a $400 peak to $150 last month.

But, as investors know, volatility is the name of the game. The cryptocurrency market has repeatedly crashed and recovered to reach new highs, and it's on the same path now as the rise of the major coins, spearheaded by leader Bitcoin, goes to show.

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Before Bitcoin Cash arrived, Coinbase made it clear that it had no plans to support a hard fork of Bitcoin and the resulting coins. That policy applied to its trading platform, GDAX, as well. So, customers who wanted to access Bitcoin Cash were told to withdraw their Bitcoin before the beginning of August.

However, fast forward to today and Coinbase announced that it will support Bitcoin Cash after all, in what looks like an attempt to appease the horde of angry customers that either did not get its original message or couldn't withdraw their Bitcoin in time for the hard fork.

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Bitcoin Cash may be a newcomer in the cryptocurrency scene, but it is already one of the most important players in this market. It is now valued at over $12 billion, only trailing Bitcoin and Ethereum by market cap, which is impressive if you consider that it was only created on August 1. But, how did we end up here?

Bitcoin Cash arrives as a result of disagreements in the Bitcoin scene regarding the direction of the oldest cryptocurrency. Most backers supported an in-place upgrade (soft fork) of Bitcoin to improve scaling issues, while a faction argued that the proposed solutions did not go far enough to address their concerns, which is why it decided to go the nuclear route on August 1, hard forking Bitcoin and introducing Bitcoin Cash in the process.

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In just a few months, digital currency investors and miners will be able hedge their investments under US regulatory oversight.

The cryptocurrency trading platform operator, Ledger X has been been granted registration by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission to become the first federally regulated digital currency options exchange and clearing house in the US.

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There is a lot of discussion surrounding what will happen to Bitcoin come August 1, when two major changes to the protocol are scheduled to take place. Will we have a soft fork, which will keep Bitcoin on the current blockchain, or will a hard fork take place, creating a separate blockchain?

There is no definitive answer yet, but the major exchanges are preparing its customers for what will likely be a bumpy period in trading. Coinbase has announced its stance, revealing that it will not support the hard fork and the coins that it may create.

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Many people are talking about Bitcoin as an investment: you buy some today, hold for a while, and sell later when the price suits you. But what if you want to buy Bitcoin and use it as an actual currency? What could you get with it?

At first glance, this looks like a simple question. However, the answer is not. And here is why.

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Investing in cryptocurrency is not for the faint of heart. The market is simply too volatile. In a short period of time, it can reach all-time highs and crash, repeatedly, seemingly out of nowhere. The trick is to not let those moments define your actions.

Just like you enjoy seeing it break new records, you have to get used to the fact that there will be some terrible days as well. Today is one of those days. All the major cryptocurrencies are in the red, with the vast majority posting double-digit losses over the last 24 hours.

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The fact that cybercriminals like to be paid in Bitcoin to unlock encrypted files or sell private information gives the impression that criminals must be major users of cryptocurrency. However, a new report from the European Commission suggests that the reality is very different.

Criminal organizations rarely use cryptocurrency (or, as the European Commission calls it, virtual currency) for illegal activities, like financing terrorism and money laundering, because it requires a certain level of technical expertise that hampers adoption.

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Dark web users fear that AlphaBay Market may have disappeared for good after an unexplained period of downtime. The site -- described as a successor to Silk Road -- is a marketplace for a myriad of illegal wares including drugs and guns, and speculation is rife that the admins may have made off with users' money.

While maintenance-related downtime is not unusual, this time around there has been no word from admins, and suspicions have been further raised after Bitcoin worth around $3.8 million was withdrawn from numerous accounts. Some users are worried that admins may have "pulled an exit scam."

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There’s been a lot of talk in recent months about cryptocurrencies, specifically Bitcoin. While it may not yet be on the verge of toppling the pound, dollar, euro, or yen in your wallet, the digital cryptocurrency is steadily gaining adoption within mainstream society and, with its rise, has brought many questions among regulators, consumers and small business looking to get in on the action.

As consumers slowly grow more comfortable with using digital currencies that use complex algorithms to make secure person-to-person payments, the businesses they serve are also beginning to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as payment.

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Volatility is the norm of the day in the cryptocurrency market, so the recent crash that saw tens of billions of dollars wiped off from its value is hardly something unusual. These things happen from time to time, but, as of late, you can expect the market to recover shortly after.

Case in point: yesterday I was telling you that all the major cryptocurrencies were in the red. The market's cap was down to under $90 billion. A couple of hours later, things started to improve, reaching the point where the cap is back over the $100 billion mark.

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When the price of Ethereum broke the $400 mark earlier this month, the flippening looked like a sure thing. Pundits were expecting it to soon surpass Bitcoin and become the most valuable cryptocurrency in the process. However, fast forward to today, Ethereum is crashing hard while its rival is still holding well.

The price of Ethereum has dropped to around $235, bringing its market cap down to around $21.9 billion. Meanwhile, Bitcoin is trading for around $2330, and its market cap is around $38.8 billion. From a difference of less than $8 billion in market cap, Bitcoin's lead has more than doubled in just a couple of weeks.

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Many analysts argue that cryptocurrencies need to be formally recognized by major governments in order to gain credibility. Well, for Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency around, things are moving in the right direction.

The Indian government has decided to regulate the local Bitcoin market, just a few months after it was revealed that the Inter-Disciplinary Committee under the Ministry of Finance was assessing the legality of Bitcoin.

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