Bitcoin rises above $10,000 for the first time in a year

Enlarge (credit: Peter KovalevTASS via Getty Images)

Bitcoin’s price has soared above $10,000 for the first time since early 2018, a new milestone in the virtual currency’s latest comeback.

The price has more than tripled since hitting rock-bottom last December around $3,200. That was after crashing from an all-time high around $19,500 in December 2017.

As always, it’s difficult to be sure what drives changes in Bitcoin’s price. But one obvious candidate is Facebook’s announcement of its own cryptocurrency, called Libra, earlier this week. Libra is a potential Bitcoin competitor, but the announcement also brings added legitimacy to the overall cryptocurrency market.