Bitcoin was trading mostly unchanged Wednesday, extending what’s been a relatively quiet spell for the world’s largest and oldest cryptocurrency.
A single bitcoin
BTCUSD, -0.03%
was last going for $6,280.19, unchanged since Tuesday’s level at 5 p.m. Eastern Time on the Kraken crypto exchange. Bitcoin has shed more than 50% year-to-date and is down 67% from its all-time high above $19,780 on Dec. 17, 2017.
Wednesday marks the 10th anniversary of bitcoin and the release of the white paper in which Satoshi Nakamoto, the name given to the unidentified creator of bitcoin, proposed a new peer-to-peer payment system that runs on an anonymous distributed ledger.
Read: Bitcoin is 10 years old: Here’s what to expect in the cryptocurrency’s second decade
Beyond the surge in the price of the first digital currency, the underlying technology has created a wave of financial and intellectual capital, to what many proponents believe will be the new frontier of financial innovation.
“Regardless of how one feels about cryptocurrencies, bitcoin has ushered in a technological revolution that will have profound implications for how information is shared, consumed, and protected,” wrote Adam Jiwan, CEO and co-founder of Spring Labs, a blockchain-based data sharing network.
“I’m a big believer in the unstoppable nature of technological revolutions, and we’re only 10 years into the development of distributed ledger technology. Blockchain will be ubiquitous, and the world will have to adjust. The only question is, “How soon?”
Read: The round numbers that show just how far bitcoin has come in 10 years
Altcoins and futures show small gains to begin Wednesday
Altcoins, the collective group of more than 2,000 cryptocurrencies that followed bitcoin, were showing small gains to kick-off Wednesday. Ether
ETHUSD, +0.06%
was up 0.2% at $195.01, Bitcoin Cash
BCHUSD, +0.36%
was higher by 0.7% at $416.00, Litecoin
LTCUSD, +0.74%
had gained 0.6% at $48.86 and XRP,
XRPUSD, +0.05%
was up 0.3% at 44 cents.
In futures trading, the Cboe Global Markets November contract
XBTX8, +0.08%
was up 0.1% at $6,250, while the CME Group November contract
US:BTCV8
was up 0.2% at $6,255.
Read: Ron Paul: Tax-free crypto could help avoid a Fed-created recession
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Source : MTV
