Bitcoin traders where screaming, “To the moon!” over the weekend as the price of the popular cryptocurrency surged through $2,000 for the first time, up nearly 50 percent from its price of $1,400 reached only three weeks ago.

The price rise was once again driven by increased demand from the Far East, with bitcoin exchanges in both Japan and China reporting high volumes as investors clamored for a slice of the action. While the U.S. owned Kraken (Payward Inc.) led the market in terms of volume, processing 13.17 percent of all trades, it was local exchanges down the list after that. Chinese-owned OKCoin and BTCChina accounted for 12.8 percent and 7.6 percent of all trading globally as of Friday, Hong Kong exchange Bitfinex accounted for 11.4 percent and while Japanese exchange Bitflyer accounted for 7.2 percent. Exchanges listed only as “other” due to their smaller volumes, accounted for 19 percent of all trades and were likely to have included smaller services from both countries.

Bitcoin’s record run this year started when the price passed $1,000 for the first time since 2013 at the beginning of January. Although there have been a few scares along the way, in particular a crackdown on Chinese bitcoin exchanges, the overall price has continued to climb. Although Chinese bitcoin exchanges are still subject to close government scrutiny, confidence has returned to the market overall, buoyed in part by an announcement in April that the Japanese government had recognized bitcoin as a legal payment method and that two major retailers in the country, covering hundreds of thousands of physical outlets, said they would move to accept the cryptocurrency as a payment option.

Bitcoin traders were naturally delighted with the new record high price, but others preached caution, noting that bitcoin has gone through price surges before that inevitably ended in massive price crashes. Bitcoin watcher Vinny Lingham, founder and chief executive of blockchain-based identity management startup Civic Technologies Inc., told Cointelegraph that he is not excited about the current price trend and sees it as very deleterious for the space: “Not healthy in my opinion, but clearly everyone else knows best … I’ll just wait and see.”

Malcolm Macleod of Gulden, maker of a cryptocurrency wallet, told the publication that he was worried that the bitcoin price has been pushed too high without the fundamentals to back it up, in particular no resolution of the ongoing debate about how best to scale bitcoin going further. “These things are always a mixed bag, so probably some good and some bad things come from it,” Macleod noted.

It’s too early to say whether bitcoin will maintain its current growth trajectory going forward. But it should be noted that while traders like to talk about bitcoin heading “to the moon,” rockets usually end up returning to Earth after their visit.

As of Sunday night PDT, bitcoin was trading at $2,064.67, down slightly from a 24-hour high of $2,086.35.

Photo: NASA