The cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin hit a fresh all-time high Monday above the $8,000 U.S. mark after a wild week.
At noon hour Monday London time, industry website CoinDesk says the currency hit a record high of $8,121.56 U.S. Bitcoin first broke the $8,000 handle on Sunday.
The rally comes on the back of a huge selloff on November 12, where the price of bitcoin fell to around $5,500. That low, to the record high on Sunday, marks a more than 47% in the cryptocurrency's price.
Bitcoin's price dip last weekend came after a proposed upgrade to the bitcoin network, SegWit2x, which was planned for last Thursday was called off. The aim was to increase the transaction speeds of bitcoin, which has increasingly slowed down over the years. If the upgrade had taken place, it would have caused what is known as a "hard fork," causing a new bitcoin spinoff to be formed.
Bitcoin is an extremely volatile asset and often shows wild swings in price, and has its doubters JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently called bitcoin a "fraud" and referred people who invest in it as "stupid." UBS branded bitcoin a "speculative bubble" in a recent note to investors.
