The value of the bitcoin continues to rise, with a 10 percent gain reported on Tuesday that brings it to a $400 trading value, up from $240 at the beginning of October, according to Business Insider.
"You're seeing more and more institutional investors moving into the space," said Brendan O'Connor, CEO of bitcoin broker Genesis Global Trading.
O'Connor points to the demand coming from China as one of the reasons for the continued rise of the bitcoin and claims that the daily volume of bitcoin trades from China has almost tripled in the past two weeks. Even when eliminating China from the picture, daily transactions are still higher than the standard amount, according to CNBC.
"When the price starts going up, people start coming out of the woodwork," said O'Connor. "We're setting new records almost on a daily basis for amount traded and number of transactions."
Despite this impressive increase, bitcoin is still an illiquid market, meaning it is still somewhat volatile and unpredictable in comparison to other world currencies. However, leading bitcoin companies like the Bitcoin Supersplit app believe that the bitcoin will continue to rise over the next 15 years as a reserve, meaning it will be used by governments and institutions for large amounts of money, according to City A.M. In fact, some major banks are already considering using the technology that bitcoin runs on, as previously reported by HNGN.
"We have now reached a fork in the road with bitcoin and blockchain," said Jeremy Millar of mergers and acquisitions adviser Magister Advisors. "Bitcoin has proven itself as an established currency. Blockchain, more fundamentally, will become the default global standard distributed ledger for financial transactions."
