Sakamoto Metal is a custom medal, coin, and pin badge company located in Tokyo, Japan, and on January 25th of this year, brass bitcoin medals that were produced by the company were seen at its workshop. The brass and 24K gold bitcoin medals were made available for sale back in January after a law was passed by the Japanese government recognizing bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as legal tender.
Over the past week, bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency in the world, added nearly 20% to its value and its market capitalization is now $131 billion.
Bitcoin’s next price boost could essentially arrive as soon as next month, which could power the cryptocurrency beyond the $10,000 mark.
Presently, the U.S. SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) is deciding whether or not to approve a bitcoin ETF (exchange-traded-fund) after it was requested by VanEck and SolidX, a blockchain platform, through the Chicago Board of Exchange (CBOE).
A bitcoin ETF would essentially mean that people would be able to buy into the cryptocurrency without the hassle of clunky exchanges that have frequent struggles with lack of civil trust and burdensome regulation.
Although the price of bitcoin has been trending downward for the past few months, a number of investors expect a bitcoin ETF to actually reverse that downward trend.
Last year, the Winklevoss twins’ proposal for a bitcoin ETF was rejected because of the cryptocurrency’s volatility; however, since last year, bitcoin’s volatility has seen an improvement and the cryptocurrency could possibly get ETF approval by August 15th.
Those opposed to the bitcoin ETF worry that price manipulation could occur. The U.S. Justice Dept. began investigating whether or not traders have been manipulating bitcoin’s and other digital currencies’ prices.
