Big gains and Big Macs: Bitcoin smashes through $11,000
Updated : 15:56
Less than a day after Bitcoin topped the symbolic $10,000 barrier for the first time, the cryptocurrency broke through the $11,000 mark on Wednesday morning, adding more than 10% in value over the course of just 24 hours.
Neil Wilson of ETX Capital said, "The madness of crowds is well documented, but it is quite something to behold in the flesh."
He said bitcoin had followed the "playbook" for a speculative bubble to the tee, first the displacement, followed by the boom that brought in the smart money, with the euphoria, profit-taking and panic still to come.
"It's hard to say precisely where we are in the curve, but the shape of the chart is parabolic and this sort of thing never, ever lasts," Wilson added.
Prices are up almost 1,500% in 2017 alone, a far cry from the $0.08 it was trading at in July 2010.
Bobby Lee, chief executive of Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange BTCC, took a humorous approach when assigning his new target price for the digital currency, basing his $48,000 prediction on his number of Twitter followers.
My new price target for #Bitcoin is USD $48,000.
— Bobby Lee (@bobbyclee) November 29, 2017
Will it take ~7 months to reach that?
(My #PriceTarget for $BTC is the same as my number of followers on @Twitter.) https://t.co/2k4YBkar2n
In other Bitcoin-related news, "We're seeing fresh gains for Bitcoin on a daily basis at the moment, leading us to believe that Bitcoin could easily sail past $20,000 before the end of next year," said Betway's Alan Alger.
He added, "With the steep increase in the number of people getting their hands on Bitcoin, we think it's highly likely at odds of 1/2 that the likes of McDonald’s will begin to accept it. I'm not sure how many fractions of a Bitcoin it would take to buy a Big Mac but it looks like we'll start finding out sooner rather than later!"
In the background, on Wednesday Dow Jones reported that the Nasdaq was also planning to launch bitcoin futures in the first half of 2018.
As of 1450 GMT, Bitcoin was trading at $11,272.88, or £8,405.96.