Total Cryptocurrency Market Cap Breaks $200B as Bitcoin Price Hits New High Above $7400

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by Maria Konash · 4 min read
Total Cryptocurrency Market Cap Breaks $200B as Bitcoin Price Hits New High Above $7400
Photo: KUT Austin/ Flickr

Total cryptocurrency market capitalization has reached $200 billion as Bitcoin price gains over 5.68% hitting new all-time high of more than $7400.

Another day, another record. The total market capitalization for all cryptocurrencies is again at record highs, setting above $200 billion at the press time. Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at all-time high of $7403.88, according to the CoinMarketCap.

Bitcoin price is up over 5.68% for the last 24 hours, and its market capitalization has now peaked at over $123,4 billion. Newly created cryptocurrency Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which is making significant gains, trading at around $673.85. BCH, has risen 19.67% over the last 24 hours, and made incredible 91.65% over the last 7 days.

The price of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency made fresh gains this week after derivatives giant CME Group said it would introduce bitcoin futures by the end of the year. CME said its bitcoin futures contract would be cash-settled and based on the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR), launched last November in cooperation with London-based online trading platform Crypto Facilities.

“Bitcoin is smashing its own record highs out of the park today because of an unstoppable recognition within society of its potential to make payments simple, cost effective and fast,” said Pavel Matveev, CEO at Wirex. “Rapid rises over the past few days is a lot to do with an awakening amongst financial institutions that Bitcoin is transforming how the world thinks about money.”

He continued: “CME Group’s recent decision to provide Bitcoin based derivatives contracts and Japan’s recognition in of Bitcoin as an official payment form indicates mainstream financial policy is bringing in Bitcoin from the cold. The ramifications of this are immense as it provides increased confidence to market participants around developing Bitcoin products and services.”

Bloomberg has recently confirmed the legit status of Bitcoin by writing “Bitcoin is going legit, for better or worse.” Last month, the CME Group rejected any plans to begin Bitcoin future contracts, but now the corporation says that the demand and client hunger forced them to reconsider the decision.

“Given increasing client interest in the evolving cryptocurrency markets, we have decided to introduce a Bitcoin futures contract,” said Terry Duffy, CME Group chairman and CEO. “As the world’s largest regulated FX marketplace, CME Group is the natural home for this new vehicle that will provide investors with transparency, price discovery and risk transfer capabilities.”

Kyle Samani, managing partner of cryptocurrency hedge fund Multicoin Capital, commented CME Group’s decision:

“This is big news. As a proxy, gold derivatives markets are much larger than gold markets. The same could happen here. Overall, this is a big deal for crypto.”

The Bitcoin futures will be cash-settled and will be based on the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR) which serves as a once-a-day reference rate of the U.S. dollar price of bitcoin.  Once being listed on, they will become subject to the rules of CME Group.

During the past year’s partnership between CME Group and Crypto Facilities Ltd. the BRR has been calculated and published, “aggregating the trade flow of major bitcoin spot exchanges during a calculation window into the U.S. Dollar price of one bitcoin as of 4:00 p.m. London time,” according to the official press release.

The BRR is based on the IOSCO Principles for Financial Benchmarks. Bitstamp, GDAX, itBit and Kraken are the constituent exchanges that currently contribute the pricing data for calculating the BRR.

“We are excited to work with CME Group on this product and see the BRR used as the settlement mechanism of this important product,” said Dr.Timo Schlaefer, CEO of Crypto Facilities. “The BRR has proven to reliably and transparently reflect global bitcoin-dollar trading and has become the price reference of choice for financial institutions, trading firms and data providers worldwide.”

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