(Yicai Global) Dec. 18 -- Bitcoin’s price surpassed USD20,000 on Dec. 16 to hit a record high in its 11-year history. Individual investors are now thronging the cryptocurrency market, causing slowdowns or downtimes on many trading platforms, Securities Daily reported today.

As Bitcoin rose 5 percent, traffic on trading platforms multiplied by a factor of 30, said Zhao Changpeng, chief executive of famed Malta-based crypto trading platform Binance, adding it had also suffered slowdowns, but managed to resolve these.

Huge sums from funds have been gushing into Bitcoin and thus pushed the price of the virtual tender sky-high, Securities Daily reported, citing the chief researcher at OKEx Research, which is likewise based in Malta.

The torrent of individual investors that has also swept into the Bitcoin market is likely to reshape its contours away from institutional investors and toward individual players. The ratcheted-up market frenzy for the virtual currency is likely to further generate great fluctuations in its price, said the chief researcher, who expressed the hope investors stay rational and prudent about investing in it.

Bitcoin’s price has risen 8 million times to its current high from 0.25 US cents on May 22, 2010 and now stands at USD22,815. 

Editor: Ben Armour, Xiao Yi