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Bitcoins value has risen by 3 per cent over the last 24 hours, taking the cryptocurrency above $12,000 for the first time in over a year.

The latest gains mean the price of bitcoin has nearly trebled since March, despite a global economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Other cryptocurrencies have mirrored bitcoins fortunes, with ether (ethereum) rising from just above $100 in March to todays price of $430.

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Bitcoin remains a long way off its record high of $20,000, which it reached in late 2017, but the recovery is a sign that cryptocurrency is increasingly being viewed as a safe haven asset.

During times of economic uncertainty, investors tend to turn to assets with a fixed supply, such as gold, as they are not subject to inflationary measures like quantitative easing.

The finite supply of bitcoin there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins in circulation means it shares similar properties and is sometimes referred to as digital gold.

Earlier this month, business analytics firm MicroStrategy announced that it had become the first Nasdaq-listed company to adopt bitcoin as a primary treasury reserve asset - using as much as $250 million of its cash pile to invest in bitcoin.

"This investment reflects our belief that bitcoin, as the world's most widely adopted cryptocurrency, is a dependable store of value and an attractive investment asset with more long-term appreciation potential than holding cash," MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor said in a statement.

MicroStrategy's stock has since surged over 20 per cent following the announcement.

On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled 'Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System'

Reuters

On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins the equivalent of $90 million at today's prices

Lazlo Hanyecz

Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin

On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash

REUTERS/Dimitris Michalakis

The world's biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed

Getty Images

In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim

Getty Images

On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash

REUTERS

Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year

Reuters

On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled 'Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System'

Reuters

On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins the equivalent of $90 million at today's prices

Lazlo Hanyecz

Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin

On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash

REUTERS/Dimitris Michalakis

The world's biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed

Getty Images

In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim

Getty Images

On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash

REUTERS

Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year

Reuters

Such investment may have contributed to the recent gains but could ultimately cause the price to stall, market analysts have warned.

As bitcoins steady push higher continues, it is worth bearing in mind that a high bitcoin price can sometimes create a psychological barrier for the retail investor, Simon Peters, from the online investment platform eToro, told The Independent.

Just like investors can get fractional shares, cryptocurrency investors can hold fractions of bitcoins. Yet the fact remains that many retail investors will want whole bitcoins and the price of attaining them is moving further out of reach.

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Bitcoin price hits 2020 record as investors turn to cryptocurrency during pandemic - The Independent