MOSCOW, December 7. /TASS/. Bitcoin exchange rate soared 19%, smashing through the $15,000 benchmark for the first time ever, according to the data from the electronic cryptocurrency platform, Coinmarketcap. Earlier on Thursday its exchange rate had surpassed $14,000.

Bitcoin is a decentralized system based on blockchain technology, which any user participating in the system can ‘mine’ (emit) by creating new blocks of the structure using a computing device. The system’s concept was first published in November 2008 by its author (or probably a group of authors) under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin’s popularity, though, reached its peak just over the last several years. Its emission is naturally limited, and right now, the bulk of bitcoins have already been ‘mined’.

In early August 2017, the cryptocurrency was split into classic Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, due to disputes about updates, which were supposed to increase the speed of processing transactions.