Value of all Bitcoins now exceeds $10 billion

While the idea of virtual currencies was often ridiculed when they first arose, a lot of people and businesses have found significant value in cryptocurrencies and especially the blockchain technology.

Just six years ago, a Bitcoin was worth less than $0.01 but towards the end of 2013 a frantic bubble pushed its pricing to an all-time high of $1,000. The market consolidated at much lower levels for quite some time but the last couple of months a new buying frenzy is pushing Bitcoin pricing higher and higher.

At press time, a Bitcoin is worth close to $700 and there seem to be two main reasons for this. First up, there's a lot of buying from China as a lot of Chinese fear an economic crash and a devaluation of the Yuan. Secondly, the Bitcoin block mining reward will halve next month, the coin reward to mine a single block will decrease from 25 to 12.5 coins, which will make mining less profitable.

Thanks to the recent price surge, the Bitcoin market cap now exceeds $10 billion!