Show Hide Bitcoin is the first, and the biggest, "cryptocurrency" – a decentralised tradable digital asset. Neil Wilson, senior market analyst at ETX Capital, said: “The legitimacy this gives bitcoin as a tradeable asset is very important. The market cap of bitcoin now exceeds that of IBM, Disney [or] McDonald’s.”The value of the 16.7m bitcoin units in circulation has exceeded $160bn. Rather than a commodity or currency, bitcoin is like owning stock in a company that will only ever issue 21m shares and never pay a penny in dividends. Hussein Sayed, chief market strategist at the online foreign exchange broker FXTM, said bitcoin was showing no signs of slowing.

Source: The Guardian November 27, 2017 09:44 UTC