THE BITCOIN price is still bouncing back despite a billionaire investor warning that digital currencies are “nothing but a unfounded fad”. Here is the latest Bitcoin price, live updates and breaking news.
Investor Howard Marks, who predicted the financial crisis and dotcom bubble implosion, warned that cryptocurrency is a nothing more than a fad or pyramid scheme style scam.
He said: ”In my view, digital currencies are nothing but an unfounded fad (or perhaps even a pyramid scheme), based on a willingness to ascribe value to something that has little or none beyond what people will pay for it.”
The co-chairman of Oaktree Capital, compared cryptocurrencies to the Tulip mania of 1637, the South Sea bubble of 1720 and the internet bubble of 1999.
In an investor letter, he said: ”Serious investing consists of buying things because the price is attractive relative to intrinsic value.
”Speculation, on the other hand, occurs when people buy something without any consideration of its underlying value or the appropriateness of its price."
Bitcoin suffered a crash earlier this month but has since bounced back and is now up by almost nearly 160 per cent this year.
On Wednesday Bitcoin briefly fell as low as $2,433.83, its lowest price since the cryptocurrency dramatically rebounded last week.
The volatile digital currency saw a surge last Thursday after miners backed a new upgrade of the system designed to solve the cryptocurrency’s scaling issue.
Bitcoin price graph
Thursday July 27
Midnight: Thursday's high was $2,715.69 and its low was $2,541.71, according to CoinDesk. Bitcoin opened at $2,550.18 and closed at $2,697.47.
9.15pm: The provider of a publicly traded bitcoin exchange-traded note (ETN) has been fined more than £93,000 ($120,000) by Nasdaq Stockholm for infractions of exchange rules and financial regulations.
The stock exchange's Disciplinary Committee announced that it had levied the fine because the company, XBT Provider, violated provisions in its Internal Rule Book and certain regulations of the Financial Instruments Trading Act.
Among those violations, according to the statement, were "failing to ensure that the risk function reports to the board" and "failing to implement an audit of the company's internet and IT security."
The release also pointed to infractions related to annual reporting requirements.
