, Columnist
Is Bitcoin Growing Up?
Futures trading and shorting may be smoothing the cryptocurrency's ride.
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Bitcoin is showing signs of becoming a serious asset class.
Last week's price swings hardly back up that assertion. The cryptocurrency dropped 7.8 percent on Thursday after news that the People's Bank of China threatened to shut exchanges that violate money-laundering rules. The announcement also prompted some of the biggest websites operating bitcoin in the country to halt withdrawals, limiting them to converting the digital coin to yuan and depositing it in local banks.