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NEW YORK. – Chief financial officers (CFOs) around the world seem to distrust bitcoin, according to a CNBC survey published Tuesday.

CNBC received 43 responses from their Global CFO Council to a survey about their views bitcoin, with 12 of these respondents stating that it was “real but in a bubble,” and a further six saying it was “real and still going higher,” according to their results.

Another 12 respondents said they believe bitcoin is a fraud, with the remainder responding that they do not know enough about the cryptocurrency to say anything.

More CFOs in Europe, the Middle East and Africa think bitcoin is in a bubble than in the United States or the Asia-Pacific regions, according to the survey. Similarly, more CFOs in the former areas responded with the “fraud” moniker.

Roughly 21 percent of American CFOs think bitcoin is in a bubble, compared to about 29 percent in the Asia-Pacific area. One of the CFOs on CNBC’s council, Solvay executive Karim Hajjar, said he was unsure about bitcoin.

He told CNBC:

“It’s not a currency we are using for a multibillion dollar business . . . it’s something we are curious about, we are very very open to, but we haven’t found a way to really integrate it into our business.”

Solvay would have to establish how to sell bitcoin before they would allow a customer to conduct a transaction using it, he said.

CNBC’s results somewhat echo a survey of institutional traders conducted by brokerage firm Triad Securities and Datatrek Research published last week.

In that survey, 39 percent of respondents think bitcoin is in a bubble, with a further 27 percent saying its price increase would slow down. Meanwhile, after turning cautious on bitcoin earlier this month, Fundstrat’s Tom Lee told clients Wednesday to jump back into the digital currency.

“A few weeks ago, we turned short-term neutral on bitcoin as the price level then ($7 400) exceeded our estimate of fair value,” Lee wrote in the report. “Last week, Bitcoin fell to $5 600 and since then rebounded. In our view, this move to $5 600 cleaned up weak hands and we no longer feel caution is warranted . . . We recommend steady buying of Bitcoin at these levels.”

As a result, the strategist raised his mid-2018 price target for bitcoin to $11 500 from $6 000, representing nearly 40 percent upside to its current level. Lee is bullish on the crypotcurrency due to his forecasts for strong growth in the number of bitcoin accounts and transaction dollar volume per account. He noted how Coinbase has more than 14 million accounts.

The price of bitcoin rose 1,3 percent to $8 200 yesterday. It surpassed the $8 000 level for the first time Sunday, according to data from industry website CoinDesk. The digital currency is up more than 700 percent so far this year.

Big Wall Street banks are not ignoring the digital currency’s rise. Despite JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s outspoken criticism on the viability of bitcoin as an investment, the bank is looking at allowing its clients to trade bitcoin futures, according to a Wall Street Journal report Tuesday. – cnbc.