• Bitcoin being mined.
    Bitcoin

    What bitcoin’s biggest hour ever tells us about its future

    December was the gold rush, April is the creation of a market that can function smoothly at at any level

    The price of bitcoin surged over $1,200 in just one hour Thursday morning as more bitcoin changed hands than at any time in its 9-year history. Over $1.2 billion in bitcoin traded over the course of half an hour, beginning at 7 a.m. While analysts can’t find a credible reason why, the real big story of the day is how smoothly the networks handled this huge surge. In April 2017, when bitcoin traded at $1,100, a single transaction cost $0.84. That same transaction in December, when bitcoin edged up to $20,000, may have cost up to $54.90. On Thursday, with a billion-dollar hour on the books, those trades cost less…