The price of bitcoin is skyrocketing ahead of the 'halvening'

China Photos/Getty Images

Bitcoin has broken $700!

The digital currency has gone on a wild streak over the weekend, peaking above $700 on Monday, and is currently hovering around that point — $700.58 as of writing.

(All figures come via bitcoin news site CoinDesk's price analysis tool.)

In the space of a month, bitcoin's value has jumped by more than 30% — from around $450 (£317.38) in mid-May to the $700 mark it is hovering around today.

This is the highest bitcoin's price has been in around two years — it last broke the $700 mark back in February 2014, when it was trending downwards following all-time highs of more than $1,100.

Bitcoin is infamously volatile. This time last year, it was just a third of its current value, around $230. But it has slowly regained value since, gathering pace over the last few weeks.

The price surge comes ahead of a "halvening" or "halving" later this month. This is a reduction in the amount of bitcoins produced by mining — the process whereby computers dedicate processing power towards creating new bitcoin. When it hits, the amount of bitcoin being introduced in a set time period will halve. As you'd expect when supply is about to be constrained, the price is spiking.

Previous recent surges have also been driven by Chinese investors as the yuan at a time of a weak yuan.

Here's the price of bitcoin over the last month:China Photos/Getty Images

And here is the price of bitcoin since its inception:

China Photos/Getty Images

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