Here’s a look at virtual currency bitcoin’s rollercoaster ride

Virtual currency bitcoin — which broke the $20,000 barrier in trading for the first time Wednesday — morphed from an academic paper to one of the world’s most closely-watched crypto currencies.

Here is a look at its tumultuous rise, fall and rise again.

As the world reels from the 2008 financial crash, a nine-page paper called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” is published on October 31 by someone called Satoshi Nakamoto.

The mysterious Nakamoto — whose real identity still remains a mystery — proposes creating a system where payments can be sent “directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution”.

It is a master plan for an alternative to currency not controlled by any central bank and that could be accessed by anyone.