Bitcoin is going bananas

bitcoin

Bitcoin soared past $5,400, $5,500, $5,600, $5,700, and $5,800 for the first time on Friday morning before putting in a record high of $5866 a coin, Bloomberg data showed. The cryptocurrency has since pared its gains, but still trades up 3.92% at $5,626 a coin.

Friday's advance comes after Coinbase, a digital currency exchange, announced that customers can instantly purchase bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies using a US bank account. Those customers previously had to wait several days before receiving their digital currencies.

It has been a monster week for bitcoin, which has soared nearly 30% since last Friday's close. It blew through the highly anticipated $5,000 level on Thursday, just days after the Wall Street Journal reported that Goldman Sachs was looking into setting up a bitcoin trading operation, and Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman said that the cryptocurrency was "certainly more than just a fad."

But things didn't look too promising in September. News of a crackdown on trading in China and and regulatory uncertainty around initial coin offerings, a cryptocurrency-based fundraising method, pushed the cryptocurrency to a low of $2,900 per coin on September 15, it has since rallied.

Neil Wilson, a senior analyst at ETX Capital, told Business Insider on Thursday that ""bulls returned to the market with a vengeance."

Bitcoin is up about 476% this year.

Bitcoin