Investing.com – Bitcoin recovered for a third consecutive session after last week’s plunge and held above $16,000 on Wednesday.
Bitcoin gained 7.47%, or $1,118.00, on the Bitfinex exchange to trade at $16,078.00 by 3:57AM ET (8:57GMT).
The most popular cryptocurrency –which trades 24 hours a day, 7 days a week- hit a record high of $19,891.00 on December 17 in the run up to CME’s launch of Bitcoin Futures that same Sunday.
However, from that top Bitcoin proceeded to plunge nearly 50% in what was six consecutive days of declines to hit a low last Friday at $10,718.00.
The largest alternative currency by market cap staged a short-lived jump of around 6.6% on Friday, only to shave those gains on Christmas Eve.
With the recovery starting in earnest on Monday, Bitcoin continued three days of gains that took it past $16,000 and was last up more than 50% from last Friday’s low, but still off around 19% from record highs and was struggling to maintain the $16,000 mark.
All things said, Bitcoin has rallied more than 1,500% in 2017 after starting the year just below $1,000 and is on track for gains of more than 60% in December alone.
Elsewhere in cryptocurrency trading, rivals were also trading mostly higher on Wednesday. At 3:58AM ET (8:58GMT), Ethereum, the second most valuable cryptocurrency by market cap after bitcoin, rose 3.02% to $763.62, Bitcoin Cash, the result of the “fork” from the world’s largest digital currency on August 1 in a move that was designed to be able to process transactions more quickly at a lower cost, advanced 1.90% to $2,883.70, while Ripple - designed for banks and global money transfers and with one of the more affordable price tags- gained 6.58% to $1.1380.