The price of bitcoin has returned in recent days to new peaks after a period of deadlock over the functioning of the digital currency that exposed the pains of growth and the challenges of a currency that is neither regulated nor associated with a central entity.
The demand for bitcoins had recently gone through a period of relative calm, with the price to sink to below $ 2,000, mainly as a result of disagreements among currency users who are keen to keep the system running. But the value has skyrocketed since the beginning of the month, with the decision on the adoption of a technical measure that aims to make technology more effective.
The value indicator of bitcoin published daily by the New York Stock Exchange indicated that the currency was worth $ 3373 (or € 2874) on Tuesday. At the beginning of the year, the value was around one thousand euros. The New York Stock Exchange compiles information from various sources, but the price of bitcoins, as well as that of other similar currencies, varies greatly. Transactions occur 24 hours a day on online services that act as unregulated stock exchanges. At 18:40 on Wednesday, the site Coindesk indicated a price of 2844 euros. The large rises this year have allowed many investors to make significant profits, but they have also sparked discussions about the possibility of a speculative bubble.
Over the past few months, bitcoin users have discussed the workings of blockhain, the distributed database technology on which bitcoins are based. These are limitations defined by the creator of the currency (the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto), which make the time it takes for the system to process and validate new transactions in bitcoins is very long when compared to traditional payment systems, such as cards Banking services. This means that when someone pays for something in bitcoins you may have to wait hours until the transaction is complete, whereas a traditional payment system takes only a few seconds.
The attempt to find a technical solution to this problem has caused intense debate and divisions between the various parties involved in the technology, including companies, programmers and users commonly known as miners. These are people or groups of people who use bictoin software and whose computers are dedicated to validating transactions and ensuring the blockchain works. Each time someone validates a block of transactions, it receives bitcoins as a reward. One of the proposed solutions has recently been accepted by most of these miners and will be implemented in the coming days with a software update. But a minority decided earlier this month to go the other way and create a new currency, called bitcoin cash (which is currently worth nine times less than one bitcoin).
This is far from the first time digital coins come up with a bitcoin-like operation. One of the best known is ether (also called ethereum, the name of the network on which it rests), whose price is now about 30 times higher than the beginning of the year.
Many of the investments in these digital currencies are motivated by the prospect of fast profit. But some investors argue that blockhain technology will eventually mass up and currencies can be used to buy goods and services.
For now, and despite being created almost nine years ago, bitcoin (by far the most popular of these coins) continues to have niche use - and is often used in illegal activities. The authors of the recent hacking attack on the HBO television station are demanding a payment in bitcoins not to divulge secret information. Also the authors of the WannaCry attack demanded the victims a payment in bitcoins so that they could gain access to the files again.
On the other hand, banking and financial services are among the tech-savvy sectors. On Wednesday, the US multinational Fidelity, which provides investment services, announced a partnership with the Coinbase bitcoins exchange, allowing its clients to consult on the Fidelity website and to share with the investment managers the funds they have In that digital currency.