The bitcoin price has surpassed $7,500 today, on November 16, achieving $7,558 at its peak, as the market continues to demonstrate optimism around the rapid rate of adoption by leading financial platforms.
$15 Billion App Square’s Integration of Bitcoin
Earlier this week, Square, the $15 billion payments app development firm operated by CEO Jack Dorsey, the founder and CEO at Twitter, surprised its users with the integration of a bitcoin brokerage feature on its mobile app used by more than 3 million active users.
The development team of Square followed up the integration of its first bitcoin pilot with the following statement:
Advertisement:
“We’re always listening to our customers and we’ve found that they are interested in using the Cash App to buy Bitcoin. We’re exploring how Square can make this experience faster and easier, and have rolled out this feature to a small number of Cash App customers. We believe cryptocurrency can greatly impact the ability of individuals to participate in the global financial system and we’re excited to learn more here.”
Square’s integration of a bitcoin brokerage service will soon allow the app and the company to compete with existing service providers in the bitcoin market, most notably Coinbase. Over the past few years, bitcoin wallets, trading platforms, and brokerages have grown exponentially in value and user base. Hence, in the mid-term, major financial platforms such as Square will likely begin testing the bitcoin market, given the rapid increase in demand for bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market in general.
$95 Billion Hedge Fund’s Entrance into Bitcoin
Almost immediately after CME Group’s confirmation in regards to its launch of a bitcoin futures exchange by the second week of December, $95 billion hedge fund Man Group revealed its plans to invest in bitcoin by the end of 2017. Man Group CEO Luke Ellis stated at the 2017 Reuters Summit that bitcoin will soon be added to Man Group’s “Investment Universe,” or a diversified portfolio of assets.
Managers and partners of large-scale hedge funds like Man Group are only permitted to issuing checks in the minimum value of around $300 million. Given such policy, in the mid-term, hedge funds and investment firms will invest at least billions of dollars in bitcoin, further increasing its liquidity and improving infrastructure surrounding the cryptocurrency.
Throughout this week, the market has remained highly enthusiastic and optimistic in regards to the short-term growth trend of bitcoin, considering that some of the world’s largest hedge funds will pour in billions of dollars in the market in the upcoming months.
George Kikvadze, the vice chairman at Bitfury, also stated that out of the 30 institutional investors he had met in the previous week, 12 are in the process of investing in bitcoin, 10 plan to invest in bitcoin in the short-term, and eight remain undecided.
While the bitcoin price has been relatively volatile over the past four days, by the end of this month, the $8,000 price target of highly regarded financial analyst Max Keiser seems realistic, given the adoption of bitcoin by major financial service providers and retail investors.