Trading under the ticker BITO, the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF launched on the New York Stock Exchange on 19 October 2021.<\/p>\n
Bloomberg reported that more than 24 million BITO shares changed hands on launch day, representing a turnover of almost $1 billion (around R14.4 billion on the day).<\/p>\n
According to Bloomberg, bitcoin climbed to its all-time high thanks to a rush of pandemic-era liquidity, speculative bets, and expectations of broader adoption by institutional investors.<\/p>\n
It was a rough ride.<\/p>\n
After leaping to new highs in April, bitcoin plunged below $30,000 in June\u2014dipping close to R400,000 in South Africa\u2014after Elon Musk posted on Twitter<\/strong><\/a> about the energy consumption of Bitcoin\u2019s mining algorithm.<\/p>\n Bitcoin mining is the process of solving complex mathematical problems that helps secure transactions on the blockchain.<\/p>\n Musk had given bullish endorsements for Bitcoin and posted several in-jokes on Twitter involving alternative cryptocurrency Dogecoin.<\/p>\n His endorsements of Bitcoin included an investment by Tesla<\/strong><\/a> of $1.5 billion (R21.7 billion) in the world\u2019s biggest cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n Musk had also announced that Tesla would accept bitcoin as payment<\/strong><\/a> for its electric vehicles.<\/p>\n However, the billionaire backtracked<\/a><\/strong>, stating that Tesla would not be accepting bitcoin payments citing \u201cconcerns about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal\u201d.<\/p>\n Cryptocurrency enthusiasts found Musk\u2019s sudden U-turn curious, as he must have known about the amount of computing power currently devoted to the Bitcoin network.<\/p>\n Regardless, Musk\u2019s tweets kickstarted a rapid correction in the manic cryptocurrency market, ultimately wiping out over $1.25 trillion (R18 trillion) of value.<\/p>\n Prices have recovered since July, despite regulatory crackdowns around the world and the banning of Bitcoin mining in China.<\/p>\n Before the ban, China was the biggest contributor of computing power to the Bitcoin network.<\/p>\n Wall Street enthusiasm has also increased.<\/p>\n Bank of New York Mellon, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley are among firms offering crypto-related services.<\/p>\n Dawn Fitzpatrick, chief investment officer of Soros Fund Management, said her firm holds some coins and that crypto \u201chas gone mainstream.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, there is still a long way to go.<\/p>\n For instance, SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci said that while there\u2019s a \u201cfeeding frenzy\u201d in crypto among about 10% of financial-services firms, the vast majority are hesitant about the asset class.<\/p>\n Over the past few years, a whole new crypto-economy has also formed.<\/p>\n Non-fungible tokens or NFTs \u2014 which allow holders of digital art and collectables to track ownership \u2014 have stepped into the limelight.<\/p>\n So has the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, which allows people to lend, borrow, trade and take out insurance directly from each other, without intermediaries such as banks.<\/p>\n Bitcoin\u2019s record came in time for its birthday \u2014 the digital coin was born on Halloween 2008 with the publication of a research paper by someone who went by the name Satoshi Nakamoto.<\/p>\n The paper<\/a><\/strong> was titled \u201cBitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.\u201d<\/p>\n Its birth ignited a digital currency revolution that led to the emergence of more than 12,000 other coins, according to CoinMarketCap data.<\/p>\n The total market value of cryptocurrencies exceeds $2.5 trillion (R36.1 trillion).<\/p>\n Bitcoin passed the million rand mark on South African cryptocurrency exchanges Luno, Valr, and AltCoinTrader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":408178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44696],"tags":[187,11373,35,42992,73522,20719,56040],"class_list":["post-419196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","tag-bitcoin","tag-elon-musk","tag-headline","tag-luno","tag-proshares-bitcoin-strategy-etf-bito","tag-tesla","tag-valr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":419208,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419196\/revisions\/419208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Bitcoin-ZAR-price-on-Luno-8-November.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Bitcoin-USDT-price-on-Binance-8-November.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nNow read: Why the world\u2019s biggest Bitcoin exchange banned South Africa from margin trading<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"