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Bitcoin hits $6,000, making its creator even more insanely rich

The cryptocurrency reached a new high Friday, keeping up a huge gain for 2017.

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Ben Fox Rubin
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Ben Fox Rubin Former senior reporter
Ben Fox Rubin was a senior reporter for CNET News in Manhattan, reporting on Amazon, e-commerce and mobile payments. He previously worked as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and got his start at newspapers in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
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Last month, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon called bitcoin "a fraud." But investors in the cryptocurrency don't seem all that convinced.

Bitcoin's value surged Friday above $6,000 for the first time, according to CoinDesk, keeping up the cryptocurrency's massive run in 2017. On Jan. 1 this year, bitcoin was priced at just under $1,000. Still, the cryptocurrency's value has been extremely volatile and prone crashes.

Likely the biggest beneficiary of this huge gain is bitcoin's anonymous creator, who goes by the name Satoshi Nakamoto. According to Quartz, Satoshi owns roughly 980,000 bitcoin, which would be worth about $5.9 billion and make Satoshi the 247th richest person in the world.