By Chris Dieterich
Digital commodity bitcoin surged in price on Wednesday, notching what appears to be the biggest gain in more than a year.
The reasons are clear as mud.
Bitcoin prices vaulted 11% to $445 on Wednesday, according to CoinDesk. The Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC), the first trading vehicle to track the price of bitcoin, jumped 29% on Thursday; its price has roughly doubled over the past month, according to FactSet.
Why would prices for a mysterious, speculator-driven commodity* surge? Some are pointing to the adoption of bitcoin as a money-transfer conduit for participants of gambling junkets in Macau. Or maybe the reason was that a U.K.-based research firm predicted that bitcoin could be a key reserve currency in a few as 15 years. General enthusiasm for its underlying “blockchain” technology? Nobody knows. Keep in mind that prices imploded last year after Mt. Gox, what was then the largest and most ludicrously named bitcoin exchange, announced a massive hacking scandal that led to bankruptcy.
http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2015/11/04/bitcoin-is-going-bananas/
