Bitcoin eases off record highs, up more than $1500 on week

• Bitcoin surges to new all-time high at $7447 before losing momentum.
• Cryptocurrency investors await the next hard fork.

The BTC/USD pair extended its unabated rally for the sixth straight day on Friday and touched a new record peak at $7447. As of writing, the pair was trading at $7260, adding $240, or 3.45%, on the day.

This week's robust increase in bitcoin's price seems to be fueled by the ongoing positive impact of ramped up expectations over institutional investors taking an active part in the cryptocurrency market in near future. On Tuesday, CME Group, the world's largest derivatives exchange operator, announced its plans to introduce bitcoin futures in the fourth quarter of 2017 amid increasing client interest.

The price of bitcoin cash (BCH) also showed a sharp increase as it added more than 20% on Friday to move closer to the $700 mark. 

On the other hand, Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee, who has been a known supporter of bitcoin, in a report said that they were being cautious in the near-term as fundamentals were not backing up this recent rally. 

The next big event for the digital currency will be the so-called hard-fork known as the SegWit2x software upgrade, which is scheduled for November 13. "To be activated on Nov. 13, the new software will seek to adjust rules set in the initial split with the bitcoin blockchain, one that also hints at larger criticisms about bitcoin cash's economic network. In particular, the change will attempt to reverse a piece of code, called the emergency difficulty adjustment (EDA) rule, meant to help bitcoin cash better attract miners willing to secure its blockchain," coindesk.com author Pete Rizzo explains.