Bitcoin climbed above $34,000 for the first time on Sunday, extending a record-breaking rally in the volatile cryptocurrency that delivered a more than 300 per cent gain last year.
With trading in key financial markets yet to commence in 2021, bitcoin has resumed its dizzying ascent, rising more than 10 per cent in the first few days of January.
By late afternoon in London on Sunday, it had given up some of its early gains to dip just below $33,000.
The rally has fed concerns that bitcoin is set to repeat the events of three years ago, when a bull market dramatically collapsed.
When the cryptocurrency set a record high in November, economist Nouriel Roubini called it a “pure speculative asset and bubble with no fundamental value”.
The recent gains have far outpaced mainstream asset classes. Bitcoin rose 305 per cent last year, compared with the 16 per cent lift in Wall Street’s blue-chip S&P 500 stock index, and gold’s 25 per cent rally.