This file photo taken on June 20, 2014, shows an entrance of La Maison du Bitcoin in Paris.
Bitcoin broke the US$10,000 barrier for first time on November 29, 2017. AFP
NEW YORK, United States — Bitcoin surged above $11,000 for the first time on Wednesday as it extends a stratospheric rise that has delighted investors but sparked fears of a bubble.
The virtual currency achieved its first landmark of a historic day early in the Asian trading session, breaching $10,000 for the first time, according to Bloomberg News figures.
The surged continued and it got as high as $11,434 before tumbling to $9,643 near 1930 GMT, a drop of 15 percent in just a few hours.
The cryptocurrency started the year at just $1,000, and as recently as mid-October was trading at $5,000.
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The rise in recent weeks has been spurred in part by a late October announcement by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to launch a futures marketplace for bitcoin. The tech-heavy Nasdaq exchange also is planning to launch bitcoin futures trading next year, according to press reports Wednesday.
With the latest rise, the overall value of bitcoin globally is 180 billion, according to the site coinmarketcap.com.
