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Frankfurt / Luxemburg (dpa) - The digital currency Bitcoin continues its record hunt in the new year.
On Saturday evening, the Bitcoin price on the Luxembourg trading platform Bitstamp rose to $ 33,099.
Bitcoin could not quite maintain the level, but was only just below it at $ 32,750.
Bitcoin has thus increased in price by almost $ 4,000 or 13 percent since the beginning of the new year.
At other trading venues, of which there are numerous, the record highs can deviate, as there is no central Bitcoin trading.
Bitcoin's recent soaring is breathtaking.
Started at around $ 8,000 at the beginning of 2020, the rate initially fell to less than $ 4,000 during the first Corona wave in spring.
Then began a slow increase that accelerated sharply in the fall.
Since the end of September, the price has climbed by more than $ 20,000, or almost 190 percent.
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Bitcoin is the oldest and by far the best-known digital currency.
Experts had recently estimated the market capitalization to be around $ 550 billion.
There is no suitable reason for the rise in Bitcoin to the current record high shortly after the turn of the year.
For the latest soaring, the market repeatedly states that the digital currency has recently moved more into the focus of major financial investors and is in greater demand.
Above all, the announcement by the payment service PayPal that it would allow its customers to pay with Bitcoins resulted in an enormous surge in demand.
Interest in digital currencies is also being increased by the corona pandemic and the associated sharp rise in national debt.
For this reason, some investors fear rising inflation in the medium to longer term, which they want to hedge against with alternative investments.
However, experts also warn of the extreme price fluctuations in Bitcoin.
Three years ago, the rate of the digital currency collapsed by around 70 percent in a short time.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210102-99-877809 / 2