NEW YORK - Cryptocurrency Bitcoin made its debut on a major bourse Sunday, opening at $15,000 per

unit at the Chicago board options exchange.

Around 23:20 GMT, the price of the currency had risen to $15,940 dollars on a futures contract
scheduled for settlement on January 17 according to data provided by the Chicago board options
exchange (Cboe).

A futures contract is a financial product that allows investors to bet on whether the currency's price will
rise or fall.

It is the first opportunity for professional investors to invest in bitcoin.

Many are way of embracing bitcoin because it has no central bank backing it and no legal exchange rate.

The first twenty minutes of trading saw volatility, with the price rising to $16,600 per unit before going
down.

Bob Fitzsimmons, a futures manager at Wedbush Securities, told AFP approximately 150 trades were
made in the first few minutes.

"It's quiet," he said.

Its price was $15,250 in pre-opening trades that took place 45 minutes before the official start,
Fitzsimmons added.

This was still far short of its highs of $17,000 on other non-regulated online platforms last week.

The Cboe website was down at the time of the debut on Sunday.

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Bitcoin dips after setting another record high

Reuters

Posted at Dec 05 2017 12:31 AM | Updated as of Dec 05 2017 12:33 AM

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LONDON - Bitcoin dipped back under $11,000 on Monday, coming off a record high just shy of $11,800 it
hit on Sunday after a surge from less than $1,000 at the start of the year.

The cryptocurrency, which trades 24 hours a day and seven days a week, climbed as high as $11,799.99
on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange at around 2100 GMT on Sunday.

It was not clear what caused the move higher over the weekend other than new investors joining the
upstart market, with so-called wallet-providers reporting record numbers of sign-ups over the past
week.

Analysts said Friday's announcement by the main U.S. derivatives regulator that it would allow CME
Group Inc and CBOE Global Markets to list bitcoin futures contracts had turned sentiment positive after
a choppy week.

"The price rises are triggered by continued media interest driven by the expectation of futures trading
on CME," Charles Hayter, founder of data analysis website Cryptocompare, said.

By 1310 GMT on Monday, bitcoin had slipped back to around $10,919, down 2 percent on the day but
still up more than 100 percent over the past three weeks. Sunday's high marked a 1,121 percent
increase since the start of the year.

Think Markets analyst Naeem Aslam said reports Britain wants to increase regulation of bitcoin and
other digital currencies by expanding the reach of European Union anti-money-laundering rules that
force traders to disclose their identities and report suspicious activity, had knocked bitcoin off its highs.

But others said greater regulatory scrutiny would help.

"If anything, regulation will only increase bitcoin's rate of growth as regulation lends credibility and
engenders trust," Nicholas Gregory, CEO of London-based cryptocurrency firm CommerceBlock, said.

Sunday's record high for bitcoin came as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced the launch of
the "petro", which he said would be a cryptocurrency backed by oil reserves, to shore up a collapsed
economy.

Opposition leaders said the digital currency would need congressional approval and some cast doubt on
whether it would ever see the light of day in the midst of turmoil.

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Bitcoin chalks up new record as it charges past $14,000

Agence France-Presse

Posted at Dec 07 2017 05:00 PM

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A copy of bitcoin standing on PC motherboard is seen in this illustration picture, October 26, 2017. Dado
Ruvic, Reuters/FILE PHOTO

SINGAPORE - Bitcoin broke past $14,000 to a fresh record on Thursday as investors continued to pile in,
triggering a warning the cryptocurrency was "like a charging train with no brakes" that would inevitably
slip back.

It touched a new high of $14,485 before slipping back to $14,398 in Asian afternoon trade, according to
Bloomberg News.

The rally came just a day after the virtual currency, which has been used to buy everything from an ice
cream to a pint of beer, hit the $12,000 mark for the first time.

Bitcoin -- which came into being in 2009 as a bit of encrypted software and has no central bank backing
it -- has risen from a 2017 low of $752 in mid-January, and surged dramatically in the past month.

The increased interest has been driven by growing acceptance among traditional investors of an
innovation once considered the preserve of computer nerds and financial experts.

US regulators last week cleared the way for Bitcoin futures to trade on major exchanges, including the
world's biggest futures centre the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).

But some, including the US Federal Reserve, have warned against dabbling in Bitcoin as it could threaten
financial stability, and fears of a bubble have increased as the price has soared.

"Bitcoin now seems like a charging train with no brakes," said Shane Chanel, from Sydney-based ASR
Wealth Advisers. "There is an unfathomable amount of new participants piling into the cryptocurrency
market."

But he warned: "Once the hype slows down, we will most certainly see some sort of correction."

Chris Weston, chief market strategist at IG, also predicted "downside moves" in future.

"When the price does turn and there is confusion, even panic.... then watch the short sellers come out in
droves," he said.

Transactions happen when heavily encrypted codes are passed across a computer network.

Bitcoin and other virtual currencies use blockchain, which records transactions that are updated in real
time on an online ledger and maintained by a network of computers.
But it has also suffered controversies. In 2014 major Tokyo-based Bitcoin exchange MtGox collapsed
after admitting that 850,000 coins -- worth around $480 million at the time -- had disappeared from its
vaults.

Agence France-Presse