The revenue for Bitcoin miners in July increased 7 per cent to around $300 million from $281 million in June. This was also the first monthly jump in revenue for miners since April.
In India, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies at large have faced regulatory challenges to operate.
Cryptocurrency bellwether Bitcoin is now worth as much as Coca Cola and Intel. The market capitalization of the world’s most traded cryptocurrency – Bitcoin crossed $200 billion earlier this week and stood at $208 billion on Friday, as per data from CoinMarketCap. The current market cap of Bitcoin is most similar to that of chipmaker Intel and beverage company Coca Cola at $203 billion and $202.92 billion respectively. The digital currency was trading at $11,759 with market cap nearing $217 billion at the time of filing this report.
The revenue for Bitcoin miners in July increased 7 per cent to around $300 million from $281 million in June. This was also the first monthly jump in the revenue for miners since April that stood at over $400 million, according to Coin Metrics data cited by Coindesk. Bitcoin had last hit $203 billion in market cap in August 2019 while historically it peaked to $326 billion back on December 17, 2017. The price of bitcoin hit a yearly high of $12,000 on Sunday, before prices took a dip to the $$11,000 mark, and recovered slightly above the $$11,200 mark on Monday morning. “With prices up nearly 57 per cent on a year-to-date basis, bitcoin has been living up to its status as “digital gold” in 2020, serving as an effective hedge against underperforming traditional stocks and equities amidst tumultuous times,” Sumit Gupta, CEO and Co-Founder of CoinDCX told Financial Express Online.
In India, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies at large have faced regulatory challenges to operate with the RBI earlier issuing an order to banks to stop dealing with them. However, the Supreme Court had in March this year quashed the order on the use of such cryptocurrencies. The RBI in a circular in April 2018 had imposed a virtual ban on cryptocurrency trading in India. It had asked all entities falling under the purview of RBI to stop dealing in virtual currencies or providing services to platforms dealing with them. Apart from India, other countries also such as Bolivia, Colombia, Canada, and Ecuador had banned cryptocurrencies while the US had said that there is a need for regulation of such digital currencies.
“Specifically in India, the positive sentiment towards bitcoin has been aided by a nationwide increase in interest and demand for cryptocurrencies. Since the lifting of the RBI’s banking ban on cryptocurrency firms in March by the Supreme Court, Indians have taken a positive stance towards crypto,” Gupta added.
Some of India’s cryptocurrency startups working in this segment included WazirX, CoinDCX, CoinSwitch, Unocoin, Cashaa, and more. However, the lack of proper regulatory clarity has also kept investors at bay with only a handful of such blockchain-based crypto startups being able to raise capital. For instance, CoinDCX raised $2.5 million in May this year from Polychain Capital and Coinbase Ventures. On the other hand, WirX was acquired by global cryptocurrency exchange Binance in November last year.
In India, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies at large have faced regulatory challenges to operate.
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