Bitcoin Touches $8,200, Gold Hits Its Highest Point Since April

The leading digital currency bitcoin is up over 4% on the day, trading at $8,135 at press time after reaching above $8,200.

Earlier today, bitcoin dropped under the $8,000 price point to trade as low as $7,807.

On its weekly chart, bitcoin saw its lowest price point at $5,942 on May 8, while its highest price point was $8,265 on May 14.Today, Erik Voorhees, CEO of instant cryptocurrency exchange platform ShapeShift, argued that the volatility seen in bitcoin and altcoin markets over the years is a necessary phenomenon for a nascent asset, stating that bubbles are an essential part of the industry's growth.

During the week, ETH has been steadily gaining in price, and is currently up 39% over the last seven days.

Ripple has gained almost 9.59% on the day, and is trading at $0.432 at press time.

The altcoin started the day near $0.399, gradually reaching the current price point.

Over the week, the third largest cryptocurrency by market cap registered its lowest price point at $0.294 on May 10 and hit the highest value of around $0.438 earlier today.

Bitcoin cash - which went through a planned hard fork update earlier today - is trading at $393.76 at press time, up by 4.94% over the past day.

Following the coin's hard fork, BitMEX reported that the bitcoin cash network experienced difficulties processing transactions.

Total market capitalization of all digital currencies is around $250.4 billion at press time, having started the day at around $231 billion.