Yahoo Finance Bitcoin Prices Extend Breathtaking Rally Above $20,000
Investing.com - The price of the digital currency Bitcoin soared to another record high on Sunday, zooming above the $20,000-level, despite worries about a dangerous bubble and questions about the cryptocurrency's real value.
Bitcoin, which trades 24 hours a day and seven days a week, climbed as high as $20,029 on the China-based OKCoin exchange, the most in its nine-year history.
That said, there are often significant price differentials on different bitcoin exchanges, but most showed the cryptocurrency well above the $19,000-mark and flirting with the $20K-level.
At current prices, Bitcoin has a total market capitalization of around $330 billion.
Bitcoin investors expect futures volumes to perk up when CME Group (NASDAQ:CME), the world's largest derivatives exchange operator, launches its own contract to wager on the cryptocurrency later on Sunday.
The second U.S. bitcoin futures launch is seen as another step towards big institutional investors warming up to a volatile asset that had until recently been accessible only via largely unregulated markets.
Last week, the Chicago-based CBOE Global Markets was the first to launch trading in futures of the cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin, which started 2017 at about $1,000, has risen almost 2,000% so far this year, prompting analysts to warn of a growing asset bubble.
Besides Bitcoin, there are plenty of other lesser known alternative digital currencies that have enjoyed a remarkable run-up in prices so far this year, such as Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, NEM, DASH and IOTA.
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