May 24 (UPI) -- The online currency bitcoin surged more than 10 percent Wednesday to reach a new all-time high after the Digital Currency Group announced a scaling agreement.
Bitcoin prices rose to $2,537.16, bringing its five-day gain to just over 40 percent. So far in 2017, It has increased more than 150 percent -- far more than traditional safety assets.
"I think it's mostly to do with the fact they may have ended the ongoing political stalemate over scaling," Andrew Keys, head of global business development at blockchain software developer ConsenSys, told CNBC.
New York-based Digital Currency Group said the Bitcoin Scaling Agreement "represents a critical mass of the bitcoin ecosystem" with the support of 56 companies in 21 countries and 83 percent of bitcoin miners.
The document lays out upgrades to the bitcoin protocol.
"This upgrade is needed because more applications can be built on top of bitcoin and more value can be added to bitcoin," said BKCM CEO Brian Kelly.
Introduced in 2009, bitcoin has become a major form of online payment. Analysts noted that the online currency has been resistant to market volatility.
Kelly and other analysts said bitcoin can one day replace investments such as gold.
"That's what people are starting to realize. It was digital gold," Kelly said. Now, "it's more than digital gold."
