Poll: 48% Believe Bitcoin Will Be Worth Over $500 by 2016

Bitcoin enthusiasts are once again bullish on the digital currency's price potential.

A new CoinDesk poll has found that 48% of respondents believe that bitcoin will end the year valued at more than $500.

That's not to say that others weren't more bearish.

Some 38.7% of bitcoin enthusiasts think the digital currency's price will end 2015 at or near its current levels, with 4,370 of the 11,293 respondents predicting that bitcoin would be valued at between $351–$500 by this time.

Thirty-three percent of those surveyed think that the digital currency's price would rise to $501–$1,000 by 31st December, 2015. This was followed by the the $201–$350 category, which received 10.6% of the votes.

All price predictions can be seen in the pie chart below:

Bitcoin Price Poll Results

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The poll further sought clarity as to how the market had perceived the recent increase in the price of bitcoin.

Most respondents (27.4%) said they did not know what had caused the price movemenet, however, 26.3% of readers attributed the digital currency's surge last week to capital controls in China.

Roughly 20% of those surveyed believed the increase was due to recent positive news coverage on the industry, which has highlighted the rising number of major global financial institutions interested in the technology.

Ten percent of survey takers thought the price increase was linked to the European Court of Justice's ruling that bitcoin was exempt from value-added tax (VAT), which has been widely seen as a recognition of its use case as a currency.

Elsewhere, notable percentages of respondents linked the value rise to investment announcements in industry companies and the launch of New York-based bitcoin exchange Gemini, which is backed by founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.

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