As of 7:25 a.m. Pacific time this morning, bitcoins were trading at $1,041 on Mt. Gox, the world’s most prominent bitcoin exchange, a place where you can swap federal monies, such as dollars and yen, for the digital currency.

 

The price of a bitcoin has surged in recent weeks, likely driven by heavy demand in China and by public statements from U.S. financial authorities that seemed to endorse the digital currency — at least in part. Bitcoin prices topped $1,000 on a Chinese exchange last week, before hitting that mark on Mt. Gox, which is based in Japan but is used worldwide, including here in the U.S.

 

“China is still driving overall demand,” says Dan Held, who runs ZeroBlock, a site that tracks bitcoin market data. “However, I think there has been a paradigm shift in how people think about Bitcoin in the U.S