Bitcoin price hits new all-time high

The price of bitcoin, the world’s best-known cryptocurrency, has smashed through $5,000 to a new all-time high.

Bitcoin is now trading at $5,186 compared with $966 at the start of the year. The digital currency has soared 750% in the past year, and is now worth four times as much as an ounce of gold.

But the price has been volatile. Bitcoin plummeted below $3,000 in mid-September after Chinese authorities announced a crackdown on the digital currency, the Guardian reported.