Investing.com - Cryptocurrencies were mixed on Thursday, with Bitcoin inching forward and XRP pulling back from earlier gains.
Bitcoin increased 0.74% to $6,519.40 on the Bitfinex exchange, as of 9:42 AM ET (13:42 GMT).
Cryptocurrencies overall were slightly higher, with the coin market cap of total market capitalization at $218 billion at the time of writing, compared to $214 billion on Wednesday.
Ethereum,or Ether, rose 3.15% to $220.13 and Litecoin was at $63.254, up 3.10% while XRP fell 2.83% to $0.52714.
Meanwhile, Austria announced it will use the Ethereum blockchain to issue €1.15 billion ($1.35 billion) of government bonds in an auction next week.
Austrian bank Oesterreichische Kontrollbank (OeKB) will operate the notarization service. During the auction, scheduled for Oct. 2, the bank will issue the bonds on behalf of the Austrian Treasury.
“Through setting up the FinTech Advisory Council at the Ministry of Finance, we are developing strategies enabling Austria to benefit optimally from these developments,” said Austria’s Finance Minister, Hartwig Löger.
In other news, mining equipment maker Bitmain Technologies plans to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
The Chinese bitcoin mining giant reported $12 billion valuation after its latest funding round. It made $742.7 million in profit in the first half of 2018, a ninefold surge from a year ago, according to its documents.
The company said it plans to use the funds from the IPO, expected to be up to $3 billion, to invest in R&D and expand its production output. It had up to 85% share of the cryptocurrency mining market in 2017, according to Bernstein research.