Bitcoin Price breaks beyond $7000 for the first time ever

Bitcoin prices have continued to climb overnight, building on consecutive highs in recent days and ultimately reaching a new all-time high close to $7,000. At 07:00 UTC, bullish bitcoin trading saw the cryptocurrency soar to a peak of $6,994.01, having opened the session at $6,750. At press time, the price of a bitcoin is $6,939, according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index – a 2.8 percent gain for the day so far.

As CoinMarketCap reported, bitcoin is up over 20.56 percent for the last 7 days, and its market capitalization has now peaked at over $116 billion. Elsewhere in the markets, newly created cryptocurrency bitcoin cash is again making significant gains, trading at around $546, having risen 13.63 percent over the last 24 hours, and an astonishing 62.16 percent over the last 7 days.

One of the major news that has fueled this unprecedented rally is the fact that two major exchanges from U.S. have announced starting the Bitcoin Futures Contracts. CME Group Inc. – world’s largest futures market operator has said that it will soon start cash-settled Bitcoin futures contract by the year-end and is currently waiting for an approval from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Just a few months back, the CME Group has rejected any such plans but now says that it had to reconsider its decision owing to huge client demands.

The surprising thing is that Bitcoin has managed to sustain the upward momentum and in fact shown more strength despite the latest warning issued by the SEC on Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).  ICOs – a decentralized way of fundraising has received tremendous attention from investors this year and has contributed over $2billion in overall cryptocurrency markets as per fintech analytics firm Autonomous NEXT.

Many experts believe that there are several reasons as to why Bitcoin futures mean a great thing for the trading markets. First and foremost it will open the doors for traders who don’t wish to own the cryptocurrency but are willing to trade in them. This means wider adoptions and market participation which certainly means higher market liquidity.

Dave Johnson, the CEO of Latium , a cryptocurrency technology company says ” The CME announcement provides the first step in legitimizing the ever-growing crypto space as a true financial asset. For market makers, this presents access from a known and trusted party into a $94 billion marketplace.”

While there are a lot of supporters of the Bitcoin futures market, on the flip side there are severe critics as well. Joe Saluzzi, a principal at Themis Trading, believes that it’s like “playing with fire”. Joe said “I have no problem with bitcoin. I like the concept. I have a problem that on Wall Street the innovators are trying to package something up and put a derivative label on it when they really don’t know what’s underneath. It reminds me of the financial crisis all over again.”