Bitcoin futures are set to begin trading Sunday at the CBOE and a week later at the CME, and retail brokerages are bracing. Interactive Brokers' founder Tom Peterffy said on CNBC's "Fast Money" on Thursday, his concern is that the cryptocurrency could continue to rise to $100,000 or more before crashing to zero, and could pull down small brokerages in the process. Bitcoin's price has skyrocketed just this week from $12,000 to $19,000 and back down below $16,000. Futures trading is only seen as further legitimizing bitcoin even as some prominent market participants say a dangerous bubble is forming.
Interactive Brokers warns of risk from bitcoin futures
Eight years since the birth of bitcoin, central banks around the world are increasingly recognizing the potential upsides and downsides of digital currencies. The guardians of the global economy have two sets of issues to address. First is what to do, if anything, about emergence and growth of the private cryptocurrencies that are grabbing more and more attention -- with bitcoin now surging toward $10,000. The second question is whether to issue official versions.
Here’s What the World's Central Banks Really Think About Bitcoin - Bloomberg
Are crypto pioneers looking to prove that laissez faire anarchic mechanisms are capable of creating a caveat emptor stateless decentralised utopia where every man is king of his own domain, and where the state is rendered entirely pointless? Or are they engineering a means by which the world’s dark markets, criminal networks, rentiers and tax-evaders can continue to suck on the productive population through opaque and shadowy parallel networks, while they continue to give nothing back in return? Because if it’s the latter, a steady campaign of propaganda to present what is effectively the reemergence of unregulated and predatory shadow banking systems — this time on steroids — as legitimate technical innovation would be necessary.
What is crypto’s agenda really? | FT Alphaville
Here’s a thought experiment. If I purchase 0.000,000,001 of a bitcoin from Kadhim for $100, should the value of one bitcoin now be considered to be $100bn per bitcoin? If not why not? Ah, you say. Because the vast majority of buyers would not be prepared to buy for that absurd valuation. But here’s the thing. Are the vast majority of “buyers” really prepared to buy for the current valuation? Or are they simply thinking in dollars worth rather than in bitcoin’s worth? The difference is important.
Bitcoin’s fractioning problem | FT Alphaville
It's really easy to buy and sell bitcoin, as I showed you in an earlier story, and fees through apps like Coinbase are low. That's probably another reason it's so attractive. It takes just a few seconds to enter in how much you'd like to purchase, for example, and you can sell it at a moment's notice. I sold mine on Monday morning after my investment hit a weekend low of $166 and returned back to $200 as bitcoin's value increased on news of bitcoin futures trading.