At around 12:35 TMG on 16 February, Bitcoin rose to 50,547.70, dollars, a historic high. Subsequently, Bitcoin dropped about 12:55 TMG to 49,505.35, dollars 2.7 percent more than at the beginning of the session and more than 70 percent since the beginning of the year. After a dizzying performance in 2020, Bitcoin saw the value quintuple in the space of a year.

But while some market watchers are suspicious of the volatility of this decentralised market, which does not rely on any assets, others believe the situation is quite different from 2017, when prices had risen with the same enthusiasm before falling in early 2018. "The growing commercial interest in cryptocurrencies has transformed the market compared to 2017," Neil Wilson, an analyst at Markets.com, told AFP.