London (AFP)

A new surge in the price of bitcoin on Friday brings the value of all bitcoins created since 2009 to more than $ 1,000 billion, a market boosted by the enthusiasm of some large companies and despite the concerns of regulators.

Around 4:40 p.m. GMT (5:40 p.m. in Paris), bitcoin hit a new all-time high at $ 54,790, up 5.5% on the session.

With more than 18.6 million bitcoins created since its launch in 2009 by anonymous people, the entire market potentially represents 1.015 billion dollars, according to the Coinmarketcap.com site.

Since the start of the year, the price of bitcoin has climbed 89%, a performance that has raised concerns among some market participants that a bubble similar to that of 2017 could explode.

On Friday, Elon Musk, whose Tesla company participated in the price hike by announcing that it had bought $ 1.5 billion in bitcoin, defended his group's decision on Twitter.

"When the currency suffers from a negative interest rate, one would have to be silly not to look elsewhere," he argued, adding that "bitcoin is almost as bad as fiat money, I insist. the + almost + ".

Bitcoin enthusiasts see the decentralized network, created by anonymous people in 2008, as a means of protecting themselves against the actions of central banks.

In the past few months, many financial companies have also shown interest in bitcoin.

From the online payment giant Paypal in October to the juggernaut of BlackRock investment funds at the end of January, including the oldest bank on Wall Street BNY Mellon, many American financial players have announced that they are preparing the launch of services allowing you to buy, to sell or use cryptocurrencies.

But bitcoin's insatiable growth worries market watchers, who believe that with a price that has quintupled in a year, a sharp correction, or even a bubble burst, is likely.

"Musk's tweets have changed everything in the last few weeks, we are not dealing with rational buying," said a cryptocurrency broker who asked to remain anonymous.

Central banks, meanwhile, regularly criticize cryptocurrencies, like the President of the European Central Bank (ECB) Christine Lagarde, who described bitcoin as a "highly speculative asset" in February.

© 2021 AFP