Bitcoin Breaks $5,000

A new record cleared by cryptocurrency bitcoin.

According to various trackers, the price of bitcoin crashed right through the $5,000 mark for price per coin for the first time in its history. Overall, the price of the coin was up 7 percent and in the midst of it biggest daily increase in the last two weeks. At its current price, a single unit of bitcoin is worth more than four times the amount of a single ounce of gold.

But the price has been volatile.

In mid-September, the price of bitcoin slipped below $3,000 when Chinese authorities announced a crackdown on the digital currency.

Beijing ordered cryptocurrency exchanges to stop trading and blocked new registrations as government officials tried to slow down the instability they say bitcoin has introduced to the local market.

And some think this rally — impressive though it may be — is still prelude to a price adjustment.

Kenneth Rogoff, professor of economics and public policy at Harvard University and a former IMF chief economist, has predicted that the technology behind cryptocurrencies will thrive but that the price of bitcoin will collapse.

“It is folly to think that bitcoin will ever be allowed to supplant central bank-issued money,” he noted. “It is one thing for governments to allow small anonymous transactions with virtual currencies; indeed, this would be desirable. But it is an entirely different matter for governments to allow large-scale anonymous payments, which would make it extremely difficult to collect taxes or counter criminal activity.”