Bitcoin price continues to soar as the spot trading value of the cryptocurrency in exchanges around the world punches near $6,949.
Bitcoin price blew past $6,900 in the early hours of trading on Thursday, hitting yet another record high for the second consecutive day in November.
USD trading on Bitfinex touched a new all-time high of $6,949 at 06:00 (UTC) on Thursday while the global average climbed to a peak high of $6,979 due to premiums in major markets like Korea. At press time, the Korean market is showing a spread of over $300 compared to other major global bitcoin markets as retail investors continue to pile in at a time when the world’s first cryptocurrency is due to be integrated by the CME Group, the world’s largest exchange owner. Announced earlier on Tuesday, CME’s plans to list bitcoin futures contracts is widely believed to be the single biggest factor driving the current bitcoin rally.
As reported by CCN earlier, minor factors include ‘rumors surrounding the possibility of the Chinese government resuming cryptocurrency trading after the reelection of President Xi Jinping later this year, the decline in support for the SegWit2x hard fork in November, and the strong performance of the Japanese market’ in recent weeks and months.
The total value of all 16.659 million bitcoins mined (against a limit of 21 million) has now hit $115 billion. If bitcoin was dropped into the world’s M1 (liquid money metric) scale on the CIA global list, it would rank at #34 with more circulating cash than the likes of Turkey and Brazil.