(Bloomberg) -- With bitcoin prices up 17-fold this year and sitting above the $16,000 mark, valuations for the cryptocurrency are in “extreme” territory, according to BlackRock Inc.
“We are seeing sort of bubble-like valuations,” Belinda Boa, the money manager's head of active investments for Asia-Pacific, told reporters in Hong Kong. “BlackRock's view is that this isn't a financial asset like we would trade in terms of equities and fixed-income instruments.”
BlackRock joins other major financial services firms which have weighed in on bitcoin's meteoric rise this year amid increasing mainstream acceptance. Bitcoin futures contracts made their debut on Cboe Global Markets Inc.'s exchange late Sunday, and CME Group Inc. is set to launch similar products on Dec. 18.
“The higher valuations go, the more likely we are to see some volatility in that space,” Boa said. “What we're seeing in bitcoin and some of the cryptocurrencies, we have seen huge moves in asset prices. I would therefore expect that we will see a lot more volatility in the future.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Eric Lam in Hong Kong at elam87@bloomberg.net, Denise Wee in Hong Kong at dwee10@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Christopher Anstey at canstey@bloomberg.net, Andreea Papuc, Ravil Shirodkar
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