Bitcoin Rises Over 7 Percent to Breach $47,500

Bitcoin surged 7.07 percent to $47,587.38 (roughly Rs. 35,31,800) at 2200 GMT on Friday, adding $3,142.93 (roughly Rs. 2,33,300) to its previous close. Bitcoin, the world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, is up 71.6 percent from the year's low of $27,734 on January 4. Ether, the coin linked to the Ethereum blockchain network, rose 7.86 percent to $3,284.18 (roughly Rs. 2,43,700) on Friday, adding $243.55 (roughly Rs. 18,100) to its previous close.

Currently trailing Bitcoin by thousands of dollars, the Ethereum platform's potential applications, lower environmental impact, and technical upgrades are likely to help the Ether token continue to outperform Bitcoin, Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead said recently.

"You'll see a transition of people who want to store wealth, doing it in (ether) rather than just Bitcoin," he added.

The most significant change to the Ethereum blockchain since 2015 — the London Hard Fork upgrade — that went into effect Thursday shows the network is well-poised to make an even bigger upgrade to reduce its energy use by 99 percent, according to its inventor Vitalik Buterin.

Ethereum and better-known-rival Bitcoin both operate using a proof-of-work system that requires a global network of computers running around the clock. Software developers at Ethereum have been working for years to transition the blockchain to what's known as a proof-of-stake system - which uses a totally different approach to secure the network that also eliminates the carbon emissions issue.

© Thomson Reuters 2021