Bitcoin has become an important headline in the business and technology communities. The peer-to-peer decentralized virtual currency is likely to remain on top of the cryptocurrency market, despite the number of setbacks it had experienced this year. This is why Google and Yahoo! have taken notice.
The bitcoin realm was abuzz Tuesday after Yahoo! Finance incorporated bitcoin into its vast financial network. The search engine and media juggernaut added “BTCUSD=X” to its market data that includes a number of features to grab a snapshot of how it’s trading:
– Open, bid, ask and previous closing prices
– Day and 52-week price ranges
– Interactive and basic charts that span five years
– Latest bitcoin headlines from around the web
Yahoo did not make an announcement nor did it send out any news releases confirming the latest addition to its financial data terminals.
One day later, Google garnered headlines when it was discovered that bitcoin had been inserted into its detailed finance webpages. By typing in “CURRENCY:BTC” on Google Finance, users are provided with bitcoin prices, a list of bitcoin news headlines and related quotes. Price listings have also been inserted on its mobile version of Google Finance.
It still remains unclear as to when the search engine giant added bitcoin to its financial network. It had been known for a long time that Google had been reluctant of having anything to do with the virtual currency.
However, Google will not be adding the price of bitcoin to its search query. This is something that Bing and DuckDuckGo were lauded for when it incorporated bitcoin prices to its relevant search queries. Bloomberg News was another business news publication that made bitcoin a part of its various financial data terminals.
The bitcoin community is pleased with these latest revelations as it is believed that it further legitimizes the cryptocurrency and may encourage more online retailers to adopt bitcoin as a method of payment for their customers.
“Any ability to gain more information or expose information to a broader base increases it’s value. Lots of people use Yahoo Finance and now can follow the price of bitcoin in their feeds. That definitely adds value for people. Now, how that influences price, that’s another question,” wrote one Reddit user.
On top of this, the price of bitcoin continues to surge. It has shot up from less than $400 a couple of months ago to just under $650 at the time of this writing. There is now speculation that bitcoin could very well reach $1,200 sometime this year.
