If you’re hoarding cryptocurrency, now might be a good time to cash in: Bitcoin’s value has jumped to $1,023, a figure it hasn’t come close to since December 2013.
Reuters reports that the currency climbed by 125 percent last year, with the largest daily moves amounting to a maximum of 10 percent through 2016.
That’s in spite of major incidents that could’ve upset the fate of the currency, including Australian cryptographer Craig Wright’s claim of being Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, and the theft of $65 million worth of the currency from an exchange platform called Bitfinex last August.
It’s possible that Bitcoin’s value rose because of an increase in demand for the cryptocurrency in China, which is believed to see more Bitcoin trading than anywhere else in the world and which saw a 7 percent slump in the value of its national currency, the yuan.
The highest value Bitcoin has ever reached is about $1,163, which it hit towards the end of 2013. Prior to that, the community backing it was stunned by the baffling theft of $460 million worth of Bitcoin from Mt. Gox, another Bitcoin exchange that once handled roughly 70 percent of all BTC transactions.
The firm has since filed for bankruptcy and its CEO stepped down from the Bitcoin Foundation. However, there are now more bitcoins in circulation than ever before, with roughly 12.5 BTC being added to the system every 10 minutes.
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