Bitcoin tops $16K with bubble talk
The Bitcoin gold rush accelerated Thursday, as the world’s best-known digital currency barrelled through $14,000, $15,000 and $16,000 in an extraordinary price run-up that now values the cryptocurrency at more than $270 billion, eclipsing the market value of Home Depot.
Bitcoin — which many Wall Street pros claim is a speculative frenzy and financial bubble — has boosted the digital currency’s market value so much that it’s now worth more than 488 of the 500 U.S. companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index. So only 12 companies in the large-cap stock index have market values greater than Bitcoin, S&P Dow Jones Indices data through Dec. 6 show.
Bitcoin jumped more than 25 per cent on Thursday, rising as much as $3,325 and hitting an intraday record of $16,569 per coin, just eight days after topping the $10,000 milestone, according to CoinDesk, a Bitcoin exchange. For the year, Bitcoin is up more than 1,600 per cent.
The meteoric rise has caught the attention of Wall Street, which marvels at its steep and quick rise but fears the rise will end badly.
Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s investment show “Mad Money,” called Bitcoin’s most recent spike “parabolic” and compared it to a rocket just after launch.
“It has a Cape Canaveral feel,” Cramer said Thursday morning on the cable business channel, referring to the well-known Florida rocket launch site. “Maybe Bitcoin is going to Mars. Or Jupiter.”
But there’s a growing chorus of
Bitcoin watchers warning investors to steer clear of the surging cryptocurrency, despite the lure of quick riches.
“It’s difficult to see anything move as Bitcoin has and not fear a devastating bubble bursting,” warned Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA, a New York-based foreign exchange firm. “If speculation is playing as big a role in the latest moves as some suspect, then very interesting times may lie ahead.”
But Erlam says Bitcoin could rise a lot more “before the bubble bursts.”
Bitcoin backers view it as a currency and payment system of the future, as well as a new kind of investment. They say it’s an emerging alternative to the dollar, euro and yen, and an investment like gold, stocks or bonds.
Skeptics say Bitcoin is impossible to value, wildly volatile and a speculative play that may never gain widespread acceptance.
The bullish thesis has gotten a boost in recent weeks after a U.S. security regulator gave the OK for options exchanges to launch Bitcoin futures. The move is seen as helping legitimize Bitcoin and paving the way for greater acceptance from large institutional investors.
Another plank in the bull’s case is that there will be a limited number — 21 million — of Bitcoins created. There are now 16.73 million in circulation, according to coinmarketcap.com
Bitcoin works off blockchain technology, akin to an anonymous digital ledger that is not regulated by any government or financial institution.
“The Bitcoin rush is not over,” Yann Quelenn, analyst at Swissquote Bank, an online bank in Switzerland, said via email. “Sheer greed is driving the cryptocurrency higher, perhaps to $20,000 by Christmas.”
Quelenn warns of a massive hangover after the party ends.
“A (steep price) correction will likely be very tough.”