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The price of bitcoin has increased above $600, rising over 7% in the past 24 hours and 34% in a month.
The
last time the price was over $600 was 21st March, during a gradual
decline that eventually saw the value reach a low of $344 on 11th April.
For
the majority of this month, the price has ranged between around $418
and $453, beginning to rise above this level the week after the Bitcoin2014 conference in Amsterdam.
The price of bitcoin topped $600 today.This week’s price increase follows the news that US satellite service provider DISH Network is to start accepting bitcoin payments later this year.
DISH Network Corporation, which employs more than 30,000 people, has more than 14 million customers and reported revenue of $13.9bn in 2013.
This
makes it the largest company, to date, to accept bitcoin. Previously,
online retailer Overstock was the largest, with revenue of $1.3bn in
2013.
Bernie Han, executive vice president and chief operating
officer at DISH, said: “Bitcoin is becoming a preferred way for some
people to transact and we want to accommodate those individuals.”
DISH
has chosen Coinbase as the company that will process its bitcoin
payments. Coinbase claims to currently have around 32,000 businesses on
its books, with competitor BitPay citing a similar figure.
Bitcoin’s price has been on a roll of late.
The CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index
(BPI) recently crossed back above $590 on the 27th of May, representing
a 64% gain from 10th April when the price was as low as $360.
Much
of this dramatic price increase has come in just the last few days. For
approximately a one-month period prior to 19th May, bitcoin was trading
in a relatively tight band around the $450 level. Then, on that
date, the price began to steadily ratchet upwards (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index, 25th April – 26th May 2014
Source: CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index
Shifting momentum
The price of bitcoin may have also crossed an important technical threshold.
Bitcoin has reversed trading below its 50-day moving price average for the first time since early February (Figure 2).
Investors
will often look to breaks above and below various moving average
calculations as an important directional signal about where prices may
be headed.
Figure 2: Bitcoin 50-day moving average and daily price, Jan – May 2014
Source: CoinDesk Bitcoin Price IndexThe
clear break above the 50-day moving average is perhaps a bullish
technical indicator of where bitcoin’s price may be trading in the
near-term.
Volume trends
The recent price increase has been accompanied by a significant increase in USD trading volume as can be seen in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Bitcoin USD Price and Trading Volume, Feb – May 2014
Source: CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index, BitcoinAverageFrom
the 1st-18th May, there were approximately 16,000 USD-denominated
bitcoins traded on average each day on exchanges. From the 19th-26th
May, that figure more than doubled to over 41,000 bitcoins traded on
average per day.[1]
Recent
USD volumes, however, have not reached the levels of late March to
early April when news began spreading of a further crackdown by Chinese
authorities on the ability of bitcoin exchanges to interface with
Chinese banks.
Why is bitcoin’s price rising?
Unlike other
significant price moves in the past there is no obvious event which can
be pinpointed to account for the recent price increase.
A rise in
the number of bitcoin transactions, which would perhaps indicate
greater commercial use and demand for bitcoin, could explain a bitcoin
price increase.
However, the use of bitcoin as measured by total bitcoin transactions has remained relatively steady (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Daily bitcoin transactions, 26 April – 26 May 2014
.
Rather a combination of events may explain recent price trends.
China stabilizes, eBay teases, BitPay raises
In
spite of the further crackdown by Chinese authorities, the bitcoin
exchanges which are located in China have continued trading and not been
forced to relocate operations as was previously feared.
In fact, the evidence from recent trading volumes at CoinDesk CNY Bitcoin Price Index component exchange BTC China suggests trading volume may be picking up in China once again (Figure 5).
Figure 5: BTC China trading volume (units), Mar – May 2014
Source: BitcoinAverageOther possible explanations for the rise in the price of bitcoin include mention by eBay CEO that the online marketplace is “actively considering” integrating bitcoin into its payment system.
As discussed in the CoinDesk State of Bitcoin report,
a move by a major retailer such as eBay to adopt bitcoin could be a
major catalyst for further use and demand for bitcoin, which in turn
should drive the price higher.
Also of note was the recent record-setting $30m venture round by bitcoin payment processor BitPay.
The investment round surpassed the previous largest bitcoin investment round of $25m for Coinbase and valued BitPay
at a reported $160m. The round was a vote of confidence from venture
capitalists who continue to like what they see in the bitcoin economy’s
growth prospects. What other reasons explain the recent price increase? Share your thoughts in the comments below. [1]
Actual bitcoin USD-denominated volume is likely underrepresented by
these figures from BitcoinAverage as they do not include all USD
exchanges. For example, LakeBTC has recently been reporting significant
USD volume, but is excluded from BitcoinAverage’s calculations. Chart image via Shutterstock
San
Francisco-based startup QuickCoin plans to bring bitcoin to the masses
via its web-based ‘social wallet’ that lets connected users easily send
and receive bitcoin via a simple interface.
Initially, the company
is integrating its product with Facebook in the hope that bitcoin will
go viral on the social network, but it also has plans for further
partnerships in the future.
Marshall Hayner, co-founder of the company, said that the goal for QuickCoin is to remove the complexities of bitcoin for users:
“If
average people are going to adopt bitcoin, they have to be able to use
it without even really knowing they are using bitcoin, or feeling like
they are subjected to a complicated process.”
Keeping it simple
QuickCoin
has a simple interface that is clearly optimized for use on mobile
devices, with ‘Send Bitcoin’, ‘Receive Bitcoin’, ‘Logout’ and ‘Unlink
Account’ being the only available functions.
The wallet displays value in fiat currency as well as ‘bits‘
to make the introduction to bitcoin easy for inexperienced users and to
help people get over the hurdle of bitcoin’s relatively high price.
“I
would often hear ‘I can’t get into bitcoin, that’s way too expensive’,
[but] the reality is that bitcoin is divisible into very tiny amounts,”
Hayner said.
Bitcoin’s smallest unit is a tiny 0.00000001 of a
bitcoin – a unit known as a ‘satoshi’. A bit, however, is worth a more
manageable 0.000001 BTC. That’s around $0.00058 at today’s price, so 1,000 bits would be 58 cents.
How it works
Users
of the social wallet must sign in to the service using their Facebook
details. The application then creates a list of contacts from Facebook
friends to whom the user can send bitcoin – even if they have not signed
up for the service.
To add funds to their QuickCoin wallet, users
can click the ‘Receive Bitcoin’ option, which brings up a QR code
containing the wallet key. Funds can also be sent to an external wallet
via the ‘Send Bitcoin’ option.
When bitcoin is sent to a Facebook
contact, a notification shows up in the receiver’s timeline letting them
know they have received the funds.
See the company’s demo below:
Starting with Facebook
Hayner
told CoinDesk that a Facebook-centric social wallet seemed like the
best avenue for starting a bitcoin company. This certainly makes sense
considering the social network had around 1.28 billion users as of March
2014.
However, said Hayner, he and the company’s other co-founders William Cotton and Nathan Lands (who organized February’s Bitcoin Fair in San Francisco), have other services planned:
“QuickCoin
Social Wallet is our first product. Facebook is only the beginning and
we have plans for some amazing features and partnerships in the months
to come.”
As bitcoin is still an early adopter
technology, getting bitcoin in the hands of as many people as possible
is something that the industry needs in order to progress.
That’s
why QuickCoin’s founders have kept its wallet as simple as possible,
believing that even aspects of the technology such as QR codes should
only be introduced to users if absolutely necessary.
“Not everyone
has the time to do extensive research about bitcoin before they begin
to use it,” said Hayner. ”In fact, most of the people browsing the
Internet today couldn’t tell you how DNS works, the same is true for
bitcoin.” Facebook image via JuliusKielaitis / Shutterstock
