Bitcoin price boost: Cryptocurrency and US cannabis trade drive market to record levels
Bitcoin and the legalised cannabis trade in the US will drive the future of cryptocurrency trading to record levels, according to Tim Hockey, CEO of TD Ameritrade.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies surrounding legalised cannabis are driving the future of virtual currencies to higher levels than ever before, said CEO of TD Ameritrade Tim Hockey.
In an interview with CNBC, Mr Hockey said that in this trading environment, one of the reasons millennials are interested in trading again is because of bitcoin and the legalisation of cannabis in the United States.
He said: “If you look at those two sectors in the quarter we just announced last year, they would have made up about two percent of trade.
If you look at bitcoin and cannabis, they made up about seven or eight percent of trades
“Yet for this past quarter, for the full quarter, they made up about seven or eight percent of trades.
“That actually accelerated the tail-end of the quarter so December was the peak.
“We all saw it. We went to holiday parties, everyone was asking about your opinion around cryptocurrencies and blockchain.”
He added: “It’s abated a little bit in January, but even if you look at the levels that we’re trading at now, we’re still doing about 975,000 trades a day.
“That is up from the 726,000 we reported in the final quarter. So that’s in January.
“If you took out all of the blockchains, all of the cryptocurrencies and all of the cannabis-related stocks, that number would still be just shy of 900,000. So there’s a great general interest as well.”
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies like ethereum and Ripple have often been compared to commodities such as gold and precious metals.
Goldman Sachs’ Jeff Currie said bitcoin is even better than traditional commodities as it has a very low cost of labour.
He said: “If you think about its ability to be used as gold or precious metals, one thing that separates it from other commodities is it’s very low cost to store and very easy to conceal.
“It’s better than diamonds.”
According to Coindesk at 09:25 am GMT on January 24, Bitcoin price is $10,826.3 while ethereum price is $1,001.84 and Ripple price is $1.37.