Bitcoin reaches highest total valuation of $14 billion

Bitcoin bounces back after a mid-2016 currency hack by posting its highest-ever valuation.

Ty Pendlebury Editor

Ty Pendlebury is a journalism graduate of RMIT Melbourne, and has worked at CNET since 2006. He lives in New York City where he writes about streaming and home audio.

Expertise Ty has worked for radio, print, and online publications, and has been writing about home entertainment since 2004. He majored in Cinema Studies when studying at RMIT. He is an avid record collector and streaming music enthusiast. Credentials

Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.

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Ty Pendlebury

Dec. 22, 2016 9:47 a.m. PT

Bitcoin, the digital currency that most people have never actually used, has hit a record value of $14 billion after jumping 5 percent on Thursday.

The price of a single bitcoin reached $875 on the European Bitstamp exchange, according to Reuters, which is the best the currency has done since January 2014. The currency has doubled from $435 at the start of 2016.

Experts claim the growth corresponds with a weakening in the Chinese yuan; bitcoin is apparently attractive to Chinese traders because it enables them to evade currency controls.

The value of bitcoin plummeted in August 2016 after a hacker managed to steal millions of dollars worth.

Meanwhile, the individual valuation of bitcoin is still shy of the high of $1,163 reached in late 2013.