How Does Bitcoin's Market Cap Stack Up Next to Gold, the S&P 500, and U.S. Dollar?
Get your gloves on, because you're going to need them. Digital currency bitcoin is absolutely on fire after hitting an all-time high of $4,183.30 over this past weekend.
Since concerns about a possible split into two separate currencies riled the bitcoin community in mid-July, the cryptocurrency has since more than doubled in value. This year alone bitcoin has quadrupled in value, while on a peak-to-trough basis over the trailing two-year period we're talking about a 1,500% increase.
Why the bullishness surrounding a currency that's not backed by any government? For starters, the recent split into two currencies, bitcoin and bitcoin cash, has investors in the original bitcoin excited about its future potential. A majority of engineers voted in favor of the BIP 91 upgrade using SegWit2X. This upgrade allows for some of the data within bitcoin's blockchain (its decentralized digital ledger for recording transactions) to be moved out of the main bitcoin network. Doing so should speed up transaction times and settlements, increase the capacity of the bitcoin network, and help to lower transaction fees. In other words, it makes bitcoin more appealing to businesses. The minority who opposed SegWit2X were bitcoin miners who were opposed to smaller transaction fees.
Source: Fool.com
