Bitcoin breaks the US$10000 barrier for the first time, hits high of US$11377

Bitcoin value movement over the last week. (Source: Coindesk)

Bitcoin's meteoric rise jumped sharply from last week as it moved from around US$8,000 to a high of US$11,377. This is doubly impressive when you consider that on new years day the cryptocurrency was sitting just under US$1,000

by Craig Ward, 2017/11/30

Business

Bitcoin is continuing its meteoric rise as it breaks the US$10,000 barrier this week for the first time. In fact, it actually smashed this hurdle as it pushed its way up to a high of US$11,377 in the last 12 hours, although it has slipped back a bit and the previous six hours has seen it move from US$10,598 to US$9,729. The daily low was. US$9,290.

The path to this point is just as impressive as the value itself. The US$9,000 mark was met only three days ago, and it wasn’t far above the US$8,000 figure through all of last week. On 1st January 2017 Bitcoin had a value of US$1,000, but during a year full of financial experts claiming that Bitcoin is in a bubble and that it will crash anytime now, we have seen it increase tenfold (at the time of writing).

This isn’t to say that Bitcoin isn't in a bubble especially since a much more significant percentage of Bitcoin users are now speculators and traders instead of actual users of the currency. Whether the bitcoin market is going to continue to grow strongly, find an equilibrium, or crash violently is something which will be debated hotly around the web and in the finance world. Regardless of whichever outcome becomes a reality, it’s exciting to watch bitcoin develop.