Bitcoin price surges to an all-time high

Bitcoin prices surged to an all-time high this morning, reaching a value of $36,352.20 (£26,627.80).

The all-time high trading was recorded at around 7:00 this morning (GMT), just days after the cryptocurrency managed to cross the $34,000 mark for the first time.

However, the cryptocurrency remains volatile, and at the time of publication, its value had dropped to $35,024 (£25,666).

On 3 January, Bitcoin’s value rose to $34,452.08 (£25,242.18), significantly surpassing its previous record of $19,140.80 (£14,028.96) recorded in December 2017.

However, co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Celsius Network, Alex Mashinsky, told Forbes that the digital currency was “overdue” for a pullback.

“I expect a severe 30% correction between now and March, and then we will see new highs of $50k or more,” he told the publication.

Only last month, Bitcoin’s value surpassed the $22,000-barrier for the first time in its history, representing a 175% rise during 2020. Its success has been credited to wider economic conditions, backing from investors, and encouraging signs that the cryptocurrency is being adopted by mainstream platforms and services such as PayPal.

An example of such could be the UK-based Ruffer Investments, which purchased a staggering $744 million worth of Bitcoin in November.

However, the digital currency’s all-time record comes as it has been revealed that cyber criminals had been running a sophisticated operation to steal cryptocurrency from unsuspecting victims by luring them to fake exchange platforms to access their wallets.

The campaign, which has been running for a year, comprises domain registrations, websites, malicious applications, fake social media accounts and a previously undetected remote access tool (RAT) dubbed ElectroRAT, according to Intezer Labs researchers.

The ElectroRAT campaign is reported to have affected more than 6,500 users, based on the numbers of visitors to the pastebin pages used to locate the command and control servers.