The growth that Bitcoin achieved over the last year has been outstanding. 2017 was the biggest year for the digital currency. What started as a simple and unknown thing has evolved to become one of the biggest inventions in tech since the internet. Bitcoin’s success seems to be surprising everyone including those who doubted it in the first place. However, some are still not really buying into the whole idea.
JPMorgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, has apologized for calling Bitcoin a “fraud.” In a recent interview, Dimon said that he regretted making this statement but still maintained that he was not interested in the cryptocurrency.
The JPMorgan CEO had termed Bitcoin a “fraud” during a New York bank investor conference that was held in September last year. Dimon was clearly pessimistic about the future of Bitcoin saying that there was no way it was going to last. He argued that it was practically impossible to create a currency out of thin air and assume that people who are buying into it are smart.
But it seems that the JPMorgan Chase CEO and president is backpedaling on his earlier sentiments. Dimon told Fox Business that he felt the blockchain was real and it is clear that it is attracting interest from many people. However, Dimon was curious to see what governments will do once the crypto starts to become really big.
Regulations on Bitcoin are starting to take shape. South Korea, for example, announced recently new regulatory measures for Bitcoin exchanges in the country. Korea is the third largest Bitcoin market after the US and Japan. Countries like China have banned the use of Bitcoin completely. It’s not clear whether an age of Bitcoin regulation is coming soon. However, if the currency continues to grow at the current pace, Dimon feels that at some point governments will step in to regulate all exchanges around the world.
The legitimacy of Bitcoin as a real alternative currency has been growing by the day. Exchange operators in the US and in other developed economies have started to embrace Bitcoin. For instance, CME Group was one of the first notable financial institutions to embrace Bitcoin after it commenced Bitcoin Futures trading last year. NASDAQ is also following in this path with plans to start Bitcoin Futures in 2018. Wide scale acceptability and adoption of Bitcoin has been one of the key drivers of growth. Consumer and investor interest has been on the rise, and analysts expect this trend to continue.
Bitcoin is now trading at $14,786. In December last year, the cryptocurrency went above $19,000 moments after CME commenced Bitcoin futures. Just a year ago the crypto was trading at only $909. Although this was still a huge value, the leap that the coin has made in the last 12 months is simply astonishing. There are still many people like Jamie Dimon who believe that there is a catch somewhere in all this. However, if current trends are to be believed, it looks like Bitcoin is headed for a great future.
