After dizzying gyrations, what’s bitcoin really worth?

After the latest wild ride took the poster child of cryptocurrencies above $40,000 before a stomach-churning plunge, the million dollar question won’t go away: how much is bitcoin actually worth?

The virtual currency barrelled to new highs to rise more than 400 per cent over the past year, before promptly sliding some 20 per cent and then settling around $36,000.

When it started life in 2009 as open-source software, bitcoin was essentially worth zero — though within a year it had reached the heady heights of eight cents.

At today’s market rates, bloated by a surge in institutional demand, the digital unit’s market capitalisation is worth some $670 billion with myriad other crypto coins such as ethereum lifting the sector nominally close to the trillion mark.