Investing.com - Bitcoin extended its rally on Thursday, gaining steam for the third-day in a row, even as trading remained thin.
Bitcoin jumped 5.1% to $11,746.90 as of 8:15 AM ET (12:15 GMT) on the Investing.com Index. It’s been on a volatile journey for the cryptocurrency lately, reaching a high of $13,929.8 just one week from mid-June, when it was at $7,888.
Other digital coins were mixed, with Ethereum up 1% to $293.49 and XRP falling 1.3% to $0.439233 while Litecoin surged 3.7% to $123.12.
Trading is expected to be thin, as markets in the U.S. are closed for the Independence Day holiday.
The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services requested that Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) stop developing its cryptocurrency, Libra.
In a letter sent on Tuesday, the committee said the project could lead ”to an entirely new global financial system that is based out of Switzerland and intended to rival U.S. monetary policy and the dollar.” Such a rivalry could cause privacy, national security and monetary policy concerns, the lawmakers said.
Over 30 advocacy groups have asked Congress to implement an official moratorium on Libra development.
In other news, the UK’s markets watchdog is proposing banning the sale of derivatives based on crypto-assets to retail consumers from early 2020.
Prices of digital coins are volatile, which the Financial Conduct Authority says are ill-suited for retail investors who don’t understand all of the risks involved.
"We estimate the potential benefit to retail consumers from banning these (derivative) products to be in a range from 75 million pounds ($94 million) to 234.3 million pounds a year," the watchdog said.
-Reuters contributed to this report.