This is perhaps the biggest surprise economic 2017. Unknown to the general public three years ago, the bitcoin just to make a big splash on the international financial stage. Monday, December 18, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) launched futures contracts on the cryptomonnaie, a week after the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), the other large Chicago stock Exchange. And this is only the beginning. “The infamous virtual currency is becoming a financial asset like any other. This goes very quickly, ” says Daniele Bianchi, a specialist in the subject at Warwick Business School, Uk.
It must be said that it whets the appetites : his course, which did not reach 1 000 ($847 million euros) in the beginning of the year, reached almost 19 000 dollars on Monday. A flight never observed, on any asset, leaving little doubt about the runaway speculation that the bitcoin is nowadays the object. Desperate by the universe of low interest rates, where nothing related to it, investment funds are flocking ; start-ups, multiplying the raising of funds in cryptomonnaies ; the same individuals, captivated by the surge of course, buy on the platforms employed.
This “bitcoinmania” raises concerns. The Nobel Prize in economics Jean Tirole and Joseph Stiglitz call it a dangerous ” bubble “. Sunday, December 17, Axel Weber, the chairman of the board of directors of the swiss bank UBS, has urged regulators to intervene to protect investors. On the same day, the minister of economy, Bruno Le Maire, has proposed to his counterparts of the G20 to discuss the supervision of the bitcoin, which is regularly accused of encouraging money laundering. The Authority of financial markets, it, warns investors : those who seek adventure, risk losing everything if the bubble bursts…
Looking at this closely, the capitalisation of bitcoin, less than 350 billion dollars,…
