Tag: bitcoin

Bitcoin passes $60,000 for first time with backing from corporate heavyweights

Posted on by admin

PARIS: Bitcoin briefly rose above $60,000 for the first time on Saturday, as increasing backing from corporate heavyweights helps the world´s most popular virtual currency continue its record-breaking run.

The cryptocurrency hit an all-time high of $60,012 at 1149 GMT, according to the website CoinMarketCap.

Bitcoin has been on a meteoric rise since March last year, when it stood at $5,000, spurred by online payments giant PayPal saying it would allow account holders to use cryptocurrency.

Last month Elon Musk´s electric carmaker Tesla invested $1.

5 billion in the virtual unit, while Twitter chief Jack Dorsey and rap mogul Jay-Z said they are creating a fund aimed at making Bitcoin “the internet´s currency”.

Others jumping on the bandwagon include Wall Street player BNY Mellon, investment fund giant BlackRock and credit card titan Mastercard.

Bitcoin, which was launched back in 2009, hit the headlines in 2017 after soaring from less than $1,000 in January to almost $20,000 in December of the same year.

The virtual bubble then burst in subsequent days, with bitcoin´s value then fluctuating wildly before sinking below $5,000 by October 2018.

However the last year´s rise has been more steady, with investors and Wall Street finance giants wooed by dizzying growth, the opportunity for profit and asset diversification, and a safe store of value to guard against inflation.

Bitcoins are traded via a decentralised registry system known as a blockchain.

The system requires massive computer processing power in order to manage and implement transactions.

That power is provided by “miners”, who do so in the hope they will receive new bitcoins for validating transaction data.

Rush to bitcoin? Not so fast, say keepers of corporate coffers

Posted on by admin

When Elon Musk’s Tesla became the biggest name to reveal it had added bitcoin to its coffers last month, many pundits were swift to call a corporate rush towards the booming cryptocurrency.

Yet there’s unlikely to be a concerted crypto charge any time soon, say many finance executives and accountants loath to risk balance sheets and reputations on a highly volatile and unpredictable asset that confounds convention.

“When I did my treasury exams, the thing we were told as number one objective is to guarantee security and liquidity of the balance sheet,” said Graham Robinson, a partner in international tax and treasury at PwC and adviser to the UK’s Association for Corporate Treasurers.

“That is the fundamental problem with bitcoin, if those are the objectives for treasurers, then breaking them could get them in trouble.”

Tesla Inc’s $1.5 billion bitcoin bet saw it join business software firm MicroStrategy Inc and Twitter boss Jack Dorsey’s payments company Square Inc in swapping some traditional cash reserves for the digital coin.

Proponents of the cryptocurrency see it as a hedge against inflation at a time of unprecedented government stimulus, a falling dollar and record-low interest rates that make attractive high-yielding assets hard to find.

While the moves have prompted more boardroom discussions though, headaches from bitcoin’s volatility to accounting for it and storing it are likely to preclude a big wave of companies holding large amounts on balance sheets in the short term, according to over a dozen financial officers, board members and accountants interviewed by media.

“It will take more than a small handful of disruptive companies investing in bitcoin to impact the narrative in boardrooms,” said Raul Fernandez, an entrepreneur and investor who sits on the audit committee of the board of chipmaker Broadcom Inc as well as other companies.