When Mt. Gox, the world’s largest bitcoin exchange, collapsed in early 2014, it looked like the digital currency might never recover.
But it did, and now it’s on the UPSwing again.
The value of a single bitcoin has risen from less than $1,000 in January to more than $4,000 in August, and the total value of all bitcoins in circulation is now more than $60 billion. That’s still well below the highs of December 2017, when a single bitcoin was worth almost $20,000 and the total market value of all bitcoins was more than $330 billion.
But even though the overall value of the bitcoin market is still far below its peak, the number of transactions is rising again. And that’s a good sign for the future of the digital currency.
The number of daily bitcoin transactions has risen from around 150,000 in January to more than 350,000 in August. That’s still well below the peak of more than 400,000 transactions per day in December 2017.
But it’s a significant increase from the lows of around 50,000 transactions per day in April 2014.
The rise in transaction volume is a good sign for the future of bitcoin because it suggests that people are using the digital currency again after losing faith in it following the Mt. Gox collapse.
If transaction volume continues to grow, it could lead to further increases in the price of bitcoin.
The price of bitcoin is also being helped by increasing interest from institutional investors. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) launched bitcoin futures trading in December 2017, and NAsdaq is planning to launch its own bitcoin futures products in early 2019.
These moves by major financial institutions are helping to legitimize bitcoin and make it more attractive to mainstream investors. If institutional investors continue to buy into bitcoin, it could lead to even higher prices for the digital currency.
So will bitcoin rise again? It looks likely. The digital currency has already made a comeback after its early setback, and there are signs that it could continue to rise in price as more people use it and more institutional investors get involved.