After several weeks of trading in narrow ranges, bitcoin breached $10,000 on Sunday for the first time since early June.
In addition to suffering pricing blows due to the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak, the virtual currency went through its third so-called halving on May 11, which cut the rewards given to those who “mine” bitcoin to 6.25 new coins from 12.5.
The “halving” has affected the supply side of bitcoin and increased the time needed for miners to find their break-even point.
On Sunday, the cryptocurrency hit highs of $10,200.
About Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency created in January 2009 following the housing market crash. It follows the ideas set out in a whitepaper by the mysterious and pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. The identity of the person or persons who created the technology is still a mystery. Bitcoin offers the promise of lower transaction fees than traditional online payment mechanisms and is operated by a decentralized authority, unlike government-issued currencies.
There are no physical bitcoins, only balances kept on a public ledger that everyone has transparent access to, that – along with all Bitcoin transactions – is verified by a massive amount of computing power. Bitcoins are not issued or backed by any banks or governments, nor are individual bitcoins valuable as a commodity. Despite it not being legal tender, Bitcoin charts high on popularity, and has triggered the launch of hundreds of other virtual currencies
