Daily Business Wrap - Bitcoin suddenly springs to life, hits $5,000 - video Dailymotion

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Bitcoin climbed suddenly on Tuesday to the highest level since November, leading a surge in virtual currencies and ending three months of calm in the $160-billion market.

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00:00Out of the blue, Bitcoin has sprung to life. The virtual currency briefly traded above

00:07$5,000 today, the first sign of action since November. After months of calm in the market,

00:16the cryptocurrency finally came alive today with trading about $5,000 in London. No one's

00:23been able to really pinpoint a reason for the increase in price, which has been, as

00:28I said, stable since November after two years of rapid increases and then a steep decline

00:37in the value of the currency. Other cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin and Ripple and Ethereum also

00:42climbed today off the back of the Bitcoin spike, whilst Bitcoin and other digital currency-linked

00:50assets also increased. The increase in value saw Bitcoin rise to over $160 billion in total

00:57value and it will be interesting to see whether investors are deciding slowly that there is

01:03an inherent value to the currency or if it is ready for mainstream adoption. So we'll

01:08keep an eye on that and keep you up to date as the story develops. Elsewhere, French defence

01:13contractor Thales has completed its acquisition of Italian chip maker Gemalto for €4.8 billion.

01:21Thales says it will absorb Gemalto's 15,000 staff into its ongoing operations. It has

01:28divested another asset, Encipher, another cybersecurity firm, to make way for Gemalto.

01:35Thales is well known for its avionics and other aviation-related electronic systems

01:41in addition to other defence elements and vehicles. It's also a cybersecurity firm that

01:48deals in defence of electrical systems. Boeing's 737 MAX 8 could stay grounded for a while longer

01:56after the US Federal Aviation Authority said that Boeing still had work to do to upgrade its system

02:03that was blamed partly in the crash of a Lion Air jet in Indonesia last October and has been alleged

02:10that it may be involved also in the Ethiopian crash that took place in March. This was the

02:17system that was forcing the nose down of the aircraft to avoid stalling. Boeing says it's

02:22rolled out an update to the system which will avoid the nose dip happening. But the FAA says

02:28that perhaps this isn't sufficient yet and therefore this global grounding of the Boeing

02:33737 MAX 8, which are flown by the likes of FlyDubai and heavily flown in China, will remain

02:41grounded in the airports for now. That's all for us today. You can check the latest out on

02:46www.golfnews.com and we'll be back tomorrow with more headlines. Thanks for watching.

Daily Business Wrap - Bitcoin suddenly springs to life, hits $5,000

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