he $2,000 bitcoin milestone comes amid a larger trend of investors clamoring for crypto-currency of all sorts. While digital money was once seen as the province of cranks and computers geeks, it’s now so mainstream that investors see it as a new asset class and are creating hundred million dollar hedge funds to acquire it.

Meanwhile, others see digital currencies as an asset like gold, which can hold its value amid times of government instability. Recent political upheaval in Brazil and the United States, which led to drops in the dollar and the real, may have contributed to the recent uptick in bitcoin buying.