Bitcoin poses no threat to financial stability and is unlikely to rattle mainstream markets in the next couple of years, a group of leading European economists have said. Bitcoin’s small size and detachment from the wider financial system was one of the key reasons for comfort among the economists, who said major investment groups did not hold significant amounts of the digital currency. While bitcoin has surged in value by more than 900% this year, its total value stands at about $300bn, paling in comparison to the total value of global shares at almost $80tn. Nearly $64m of bitcoin was stolen by hackers who broke into the Slovenian-based bitcoin mining marketplace NiceHash. Bitcoin exchanges and wallets have a history of being targeted, and security experts say they become more vulnerable to cybercrime as valuations rise.

Source: The Guardian December 19, 2017 08:42 UTC