Bitcoin soars above historic $20,000 mark

Published time: 17 Dec, 2017 12:22 Edited time: 17 Dec, 2017 13:04

The value of bitcoin has shot up to 20,000 US dollars, double the milestone 10k mark it hit in late November.

The cryptocurrency has surged in value once again, having doubled its value over the past three weeks and reached over twenty times its worth a year ago. This is despite a number of crashes along the way, from which it has bounced back dramatically. Bitcoin’s seemingly unstoppable growth has excited investors, all the while some financial experts have continued to warn of a bubble that will inevitably burst.

A recent survey of 53 economists carried out by the Wall Street Journal found that 51 of them considered bitcoin’s price unsustainable, whereas a survey of Wall Street experts and market strategists by CNBC saw bitcoin’s rise as a bubble.

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Despite bitcoin’s notorious volatility, there seems to be growing use and acceptance of the cryptocurrency in the “real world” economy, which could help stabilize it and create a legitimate alternate to the fiat system. On Friday it was reported that the first two luxury homes in the UK have been sold using bitcoin, while earlier this week the Japanese company GMO Internet announced it would give its employees a chance to have their wages paid in the online currency.