Bitcoin Passes $16,000

Bitcoin continues to smash records, passing $16,000 in value on Thursday, Dec. 7. Bitcoin is a digital currency, not backed by any government or bank that allowsfor anonymous online transaction.

The cryptocurrency gained over $5,000 in value in under a week, reaching a high of over $16,600 on Thursday according to Coindesk.com. However, bitcoin is also seeing problems, with bitcoin mining company NiceHash announcing Wednesday it was hacked, resulting in a loss of funds. Additionally video game service Steam says it will no longer accept bitcin for payment, saying it’s too unstable. With 67 million monthly users, Steam is one of the world’s biggest video game services and began accepting bitcoin in April of 2016. In a blog post on Wednesday, a steam engineer said the currency has become too volatile and its transaction fees are too high.