The controversial cryptocurrency, which has been used to buy everything from a pizza to manicures, touched a new high of $12,590 in Asian trade before dipping back to $12,567, according to Bloomberg News. Bitcoin -- which came into being in 2009 as a bit of encrypted software and has no central bank backing it -- has risen from a 2017 low of $752 in mid-January, and has surged dramatically in the past month. US regulators last week cleared the way for Bitcoin futures to trade on major exchanges, including the world's biggest futures centre the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), in news welcomed by analysts. Transactions happen when heavily encrypted codes are passed across a computer network. Bitcoin and other virtual currencies use blockchain, which records transactions that are updated in real time on an online ledger and maintained by a network of computers.

Source: The Nation Bangkok December 07, 2017 02:28 UTC