Bitcoin shakes off bubble warnings in race past US$15,000

Sydney

BITCOIN touched US$15,000 for the first time on Thursday, extending its advance this month to more than 50 per cent as concerns mounted the cryptocurrency's rapid rise masks risks.

The world's biggest cryptocurrency is surging on expectations that new bitcoin derivatives products expected to begin trading this month will boost mainstream demand.

Some of the world's biggest brokerages criticised those plans on Wednesday, telling regulators the contracts have been rushed to market without enough due diligence.

Bitcoin jumped as much as 18.4 per cent to US$15,797 on Thursday, before paring gains to to US$14,818 at 12:20pm in London.

That takes the digital currency's surge this year to more than 1,400 per cent and its market capitalisation to US$257 billion.

"This is irrational exuberance," Royal Bank of Scotland chairman Howard John Davies said in an interview on Bloomberg TV on Thursday.

"This is a very, very unusual market, that shows we're not in a normal two-way trading market," he added.

Mr Davies agreed with the brokerages' concerns that exchanges which are set to offer bitcoin futures and options have failed to get enough feedback from market participants on margin levels, trading limits, stress tests and clearing.

Those warnings were laid out in an open letter via the Futures Industry Association on Wednesday.

Cboe Global Markets Inc has said it will start trading bitcoin futures on Dec 10, while CME Group Inc's contracts are set to debut on Dec 18. Nasdaq Inc is planning to offer futures in 2018, according to a person familiar with the matter. Cantor Fitzgerald LP's Cantor Exchange is creating a bitcoin derivative, and startup LedgerX already offers options.

ASX Ltd, the main exchange operator for equities and derivatives in Australia, on Thursday said it will start using blockchain, the technology that underlies bitcoin, to process equity transactions. BLOOMBERG