Bitcoin Sustains Upsurge; Rises Above $15,000

• Bitcoin Sustains Upsurge; Rises Above $15,000

Following Wednesday record gain, cryptocurrency Bitcoin set a new record on Thursday after blasting through $14,000 a coin to $15,007.70. Bringing its total gain in December to more than 40 percent and a month gain to more than 130 percent from $5,775.54 recorded in November.

The blockchain encrypt cryptocurrency got a boost from Australia’s mean exchange operator for equities and derivatives, ASX Ltd., when the exchange announced on Thursday that it will start using blockchain to process equity transactions. The startup run by former JPMorgan Chase & Co. banker Blythe Masters, Digital Asset Holdings LLC, will supply the technology.

The digital currency upsurge was also aided by the successful test of the lightning Network, which promises to provide a new way to pay with Bitcoin. Investors and experts believe the new technology will ease the ongoing congestion plaguing the coin transaction by allowing buyers and sellers to transact privately and later broadcast their activity to the public network.

“We had done some tests before on the main net, but this was the first payment on the Bitcoin blockchain across implementations,” Stark said in an email. “The stakes are quite a bit higher when it comes to releasing for the main Bitcoin network.”

Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capital, has gained more than 1,300 percent from about $1,000 a coin in January 2017 to $15,007.70 in December even as some experts believed the high flying unregulated digital currency is a bubble waiting to burst. The dominant cryptocurrency has continued to set new all time record.

Top global exchanges like Cboe Global Markets Inc., CME Group Inc., etc has announced they will start trading Bitcoin futures this December. While Nasdaq Inc. is planning to start in 2018. According to experts, this will further bring the Bitcoin to mainstream investors and force regulators to act.

Bitcoin market capital rose to $251 billion, up from $205 billion recorded on Wednesday.