The founder and CEO of the Digital Currency Group, Barry Silbert, sees a bright future for Bitcoin as an investment choice, claiming that it has “hit the bottom for the year.”
Bitcoin Is Here to Stay
Barry Silbert was speaking at the Delivering Alpha Conference in New York yesterday when he made his comments. He said:
I think we’ve probably hit the bottom for the year.
During the downturn in Bitcoin’s price, Silbert said that he put money into the cryptocurrency last week, reports CNBC. In recent days, the value of Bitcoin has increased, rising nearly 19 percent in the past seven days, according to CoinMarketCap.
Earlier this week, it was trading around $6,700 and is currently valued at $7,400. It still remains down over 60 percent from its mid-December high of around $20,000. However, this isn’t dampening the feelings of advocates.
With market prices increasing – the industry is currently worth $289 billion – Silbert is optimistic over Bitcoin as an investment. He stated:
As an asset class it is here to stay … I’m 100% confident a decentralized, non-fiat form of money is here to stay.
Silbert is a known crypto believer. In May, he said that money is going digital and that “digital currency is here to stay.” At the time, he was arguing that securities laws in place since the Great Depression may need to be updated in light of the growing interest in cryptocurrencies.
Reasons for Bitcoin’s Rise
For much of 2018, the number one digital currency has been struggling to gain an upward price traction. With Bitcoin falling below $6,000 twice in June, there was speculation that it could fall further.
Not only that, but Clem Chambers, CEO of ADVFN, a financial market website, said that it will “probably” drop to $2,000 first before rising up to $20,000.
The last few days, however, have seen Bitcoin rallying in price. What, though, has spurred this on?
One factor could be that Lloyd C. Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, is retiring later this year. He has remained on the fence regarding the crypto market. Yet, his successor, David Solomon, is reported as someone with an interest in cryptocurrencies.
Another area to look at is that more interest is being seen from institutional investors. On Tuesday, Adam White, the vice president and general manager at Coinbase, said that institutional investor interest in the crypto market is becoming widespread. As a result, it is helping to drive the market. The San Francisco-based crypto exchange is one firm that has been expanding in recent months due to an increasing demand from customers.
What do you think is driving market prices up? Let us know in the comments below.
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