Bitcoin Shows the World It’s Unstoppable Strength as BTC Markets Go Wild
Bitcoin had a phenomenal run over the past seven days reaching new all-time price highs and surprising everyone. The decentralized currency continues to grow more valuable as 2017 progresses and has become the hottest digital asset worldwide. During our last roundup bitcoin had just smashed past the $5K zone and a week later surpassed $6K with ease. The community is currently preparing for the mid-November hard fork that plans to increase the block size by 2MB. However, the fork is contentious and may very well lead to a blockchain split. However, just like this past summer, many traders are selling their altcoin holdings for BTC to get in on the split tokens which is pushing the price up exponentially.
Coinmama’s Weekly Cryptocurrency News Roundup
Over $1 Million in Bitcoin Futures Options Traded by LedgerX
Bitcoin futures have arrived in the U.S. as the country’s only federally regulated exchange and derivatives clearinghouse, Ledger X, has been swapping lots of options. The firm has revealed it has officially traded over $1M bitcoin futures options throughout the course of the company’s soft launch. Ledger X offers clients day-ahead swaps, and put and call options for investors looking for a different kind of bitcoin exposure. We ended up completing swaps and options trades worth over $1,000,000 USD. Crucially, these trades were cleared through Ledger X, which is the only institutional grade, US federally regulated exchange and clearinghouse for digital currencies. And we are literally just getting started.
Abra Raises $16 Million in Series B With Help from Foxconn
This week the bitcoin and remittance app Abra announced during this week’s Money 20/20 event that the massive manufacturer Foxconn has backed the firm by $16M. Other investors included American Express, Arbor Ventures, and more. Foxconn is well known for its manufacturing of the California based company Apple’s iPhone. Abra founder and CEO Bill Barhydt told the press that he sees a bright future for the bitcoin-based application stating, "we foresee a whole new market growing in this area of consumer asset finance."
Credit Card Giant Mastercard Pushes More Blockchain Research and Development
This week the major credit card firm Mastercard announced it would be focusing its blockchain efforts to business-to-business (B2B) transactions and cross-border transmissions. The firm already revealed its blockchain APIs for developers just a few months ago, Ken Moore, the senior executive at Mastercard Labs' says blockchain will transform these types of financial settlement systems. "By combining Mastercard blockchain technology with our settlement network and associated network rules, we have created a solution that is safe, secure, auditable and easy to scale," explained Moore.
Twenty Thousand Survey Respondents Believe Bitcoin Will Hit $10K
Over 20,000 survey respondents answering the news outlet CNBC’s survey think bitcoin can obtain the $10,000 price range. The Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC) survey called “Where does bitcoin go from here?” asks survey respondents their conservative predictions. More than half believe it will approach the $10,000 zone as CNBC’s Technology Correspondent Arjun Kharpal explains, well more than half said: “above $10,000.” Survey respondents are not the only individuals who believe this will happen as many famous mainstream investors think it can capture that price range as well.
Conclusion
The general sentiment among cryptocurrency enthusiasts is still very positive even though there is a fork approaching. Prices could still reach $6500 to $7K in the short term as people continue to sell their altcoins. At this stage, bitcoin is doing exceptionally well in 2017 by being up over 800% this year and leveling the currency competition. These days it's awfully hard for mainstream media, investors, and banker types to not notice this cryptocurrency phenomenon.
Coinmama’s weekly review is always on a mission to find the very best topics of interest being discussed within the digital currency space. Follow us here every week to keep up-to-date with current events concerning Bitcoin, Ethereum, and blockchain technology innovation.