Bitcoin Rises To $13.4K, Drops Back To $12K

Bitcoin rallied to its highest price since January 2018 on Wednesday before dropping by $1,000 after U.S. markets closed.

The world’s first and largest cryptocurrency soared to a high of $13,485.85 Wednesday afternoon, according to industry site CoinDesk. Prices later dropped back below the $12,000 level.

The steep price decline came at the same time as an outage on popular cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase. A Coinbase spokesperson told CNBC that the site was down “for a short period of time due to high volume.”

Still, Wednesday’s price action brings bitcoin’s one-week gains to more than 35%, and its year-to-date increase to more than 240%.

While bitcoin’s price moves can be opaque, analysts largely attributed the bounce back from 2018 lows to more interest in the space following Facebook’s announcement of a cryptocurrency project, key technical levels being broken, and safe haven buying amidst increasing global tensions and trade wars.