Based on trading data, the value of bitcoin increased by almost 10% on Wednesday morning, passing the $18,000 mark for the first time since December 2017. At that time, the maximum exchange rate of the cryptocurrency was $20,000, and an increase of 850% was recorded in three months.

According to the website CoinMarketCap, which calculates the average price for more than 20 exchanges, bitcoin rose by 9.78% to $18,223 and on the largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of trading volume, Binance – by 9.95% to $18,328 this morning. Since the beginning of this year, it has grown by 146%.

The last time the main digital coin broke the $18,000 mark was on December 19, 2017. Today, bitcoin accounts for about 66% of the global cryptocurrency market.

It is worth noting that since the beginning of the week, the positive dynamics for the main digital currency has been observed. Ergo, the growth of bitcoin has exceeded 15% since Monday. Experts believe that such a sharp rise may mean the end of the growth cycle is approaching, but most likely, the price will first break through the maximum of three years ago.

Bitcoin has been under media scrutiny recently, as it was at the end of 2017. However, unlike in December 2017, bankers and hedge fund managers call it today the new digital gold, and purchases from institutional investors give prices a green light for further growth. In 2020, bitcoin undoubtedly took a significant place in the financial market and achieved a reputation as a valuable asset, not a speculative pyramid.

To update the historical maximum, bitcoin remains only 8% growth. The price of the main digital coin has already increased by 34% only in the past weeks of November. Experts suggest that the value of bitcoin will continue to grow in the near future.

It should be noted that the positive dynamics is also observed in the altcoin market. Thus, the Litecoin cryptocurrency, which is often called digital silver, took the sixth place among the largest digital coins by capitalization. During the week, the price of Litecoin rose by 24% to $73.11, and the capitalization reached $5.6 billion. The combination of these growth indicators allowed the digital silver to take an honorable sixth place in the list of the largest digital coins and outstrip Bitcoin Cash.