48% of respondents believe Bitcoin will be worth more than $500 by 2016

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

A new CoinDesk poll found that 48% of respondents believe Bitcoin will be worth more than $ 500 by the end of the year .

That’s not to say everyone else is bullish on Bitcoin.

38.7% of Bitcoin enthusiasts believe that the price of the digital currency will be close to its current level by the end of 2015 , while 4,370 of the 11,293 respondents predicted that Bitcoin will be worth between $ 351 and $ 500 .

Two - thirds of those surveyed believe that the price of the digital currency will rise to between $ 501 and $ 1,000 by December 31. The second-highest category was $ 201 to $ 350 , with 10.6 percent of the vote .

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

What will the price of Bitcoin be at the end of 2015 ?

What do you think is behind the recent price increases?

The survey further attempts to clarify how the market views the recent rise in Bitcoin prices.

The majority of respondents ( 27.4% ) said they did not know what caused the price movement, however 26.3% of readers attributed last week’s surge in digital currencies to China’s capital controls.

Around 20% of respondents attributed the growth to recent positive industry press coverage, which highlighted that a growing number of major financial institutions around the world are interested in the technology.

10% of respondents believe that the price increase is related to the European Court of Justice ruling that exempts Bitcoin from Value Added Tax ( VAT ), which is already widely recognized as a currency.

Additionally, a significant number of respondents linked the rise in value to investment announcements from industry companies, as well as the launch of Gemini , a New York-based bitcoin exchange backed by founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss .