On May 27, the price of Bitcoin, the dominant cryptocurrency, spiked to over 10 million won ($8,450) for the first time in a year.

Its price rose 9.2 percent from a day earlier to 10,447,000 won as of 10:35 a.m., according to cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb. This is the first time the largest digital currency has hit the 10 million won threshold since May 10, 2018.

The market capitalization of Bitcoin also reached $156 billion in the morning on May 27.
Other major cryptocurrencies such as ethereum and ripple also were up about 6 percent in the morning on May 27.
The market sentiment was lifted by the halving of Bitcoin and the launch of Bitcoin futures market on CME, according to market watchers.

The halving, which is scheduled to happen in May 2020, is an event that occurs every four years when the number of coins awarded to Bitcoin miners is cut by half. It is designed to prevent inflation from eroding the value of Bitcoin. For the previous two halving events, the digital assets soared almost 100 times and three times for the following 12 months, respectively.

By Park Ga-young (gypark@heraldcorp.com)