Bitcoin Seeks Mainstream Appeal As Cryptocurrency Tastes $10,000 Valuation
Well, we barely made it 48 hours and Bitcoin is within a stone's throw of $10,000. The cryptocurrency hit a high of $10,086 today, before settling down to $9,950. Bitcoin is up nearly 900 percent so far this year. It seems inevitable that Bitcoin will surpass $10,000 across all exchanges sooner rather than later, allowing it to cross a big psychological barrier and hopefully push further into the mainstream financial market.
Bitcoin is already dipping its toes into more mainstream avenues, as both the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Options Exchange have announced their intention to launch Bitcoin futures. However, others aren't so hip to cryptocurrencies. JPMorgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon has been an outspoken critic of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, calling them frauds and labeling people that invest in them stupid.
"Governments are going to crush [cryptocurrencies] one day," said Dimon at the Institute of International Finance conference in October. "Governments like to know where the money is, who has it and what you're doing with it, in case you haven't noticed. Right?"
"I could care less what bitcoin trades for, how it trades, why it trades, who trades it. If you're stupid enough to buy it, you'll pay the price for it one day. I've also told people that it can trade at $100,000 before it trades to zero."
As he has done previously, Dimon continued to throw his own daughter under the bus for her attachment to Bitcoin. "When I made that 'stupid statement' [calling bitcoin a] fraud, my daughter sent me an email saying, 'Dad, I own two bitcoins.' My formerly smart daughter."
Tell us how you really feel, Mr. Dimon. And even though Dimon has trashed cryptocurrencies, that hasn't stopped the banking giant from investing heavily in the technology behind Bitcoin. Last month, JPMorgan Chase announced that it would be launching a blockchain-based system that would allow it to dramatically reduce payment transaction times from weeks down to mere hours.
