Will the bitcoin bubble burst?

Bitcoin is a roller coaster. After hitting the $10,000 level on Tuesday, it climbed to $11,200 on Wednesday before dropping to $9,800 a few hours later, sign of the current nervousness. While BItcoin, whose total capitalization is now approaching $200 billion, has seen its price increase tenfold in one year, the question is increasingly raised: is it a financial bubble? And no one really agrees.

A limited amount of bitcoins

With no physical existence, the bitcoin, which was worth only a few cents in 2009 at the time of its launch, is based on a peer-to-peer payment system based on the so-called "blockchain" technology. It is traded on specific platforms on the Internet and has no legal status. It is not regulated by a central bank or government but by a large community of Internet users and accepted in an increasing number of transactions (restaurants, real estate, etc.).
Above all, his mysterious creator, known as Satoshi Nakamoto, designed the system so that a limited number of bitcoins could be released.

"Speculative assets"

It is a very special asset, by definition speculative if you look at its price evolution ", said Wednesday to the American television channel CNBC the vice-president of the European Central Bank Vitor Constancio. While predicting significant fluctuations in bitcoin, the leader "does not believe that they will extend to other markets".
In mid-September, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Bank, said that bitcoin was a "scam" intended to "implode", while Credit Suisse boss Tidjane Thiam recently said that it was "the very definition of a bubble". "It's a bubble and there's a lot of foam. "It will be the biggest bubble of our lives," hedge fund manager Mike Novogratz warned at a cryptocurrency conference in New York on Tuesday.

Bitcoin becomes mainstream

The price of bitcoin was strongly boosted last month, after the American CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) Group, one of the world's largest stock exchange operators, announced in late October the upcoming launch of bitcoin futures contracts.
For its defenders, the bitcoin offers a secure alternative to traditional currencies: the "blockchain" makes transactions forgery-proof because, in order to modify information, it would have to be changed simultaneously by all users. This feature is of great interest to the banking sector, where "blockchain" could open up new horizons, simplify paperless transactions and generate savings.

At Wall Street, the investment bank Goldman Sachs is also planning to speculate on it on behalf of its clients. His rival JPMorgan Chase would be himself "very open" to cryptocurrencies "properly controlled and regulated".
"I think we're still on a strong bullish trend," says Kay Van-Petersen, strategist at Saxo Bank in Singapore. He predicts that the bitcoin could be worth between $50,000 and $100,000 in the next 6 to 18 months.