Bitcoin up 80% from April lows

The price of a bitcoin hit a low of $360 in April and had been hovering around $450 since April 25. But it started breaking away on May 20. It now sits at $665, according to CoinDesk.

The exact reason for this move is hard to pin down. The Bitcoin2014 Conference in Amsterdam drew to a close three days before the upswing started, and it featured some positive outlooks for the cryptocurrency from its 2,000 attendees.

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"The fact that you have 51 countries (represented at the conference) and all of them have something positive to say about developments in their countriesmaybe this helped show that bitcoin is bigger than just the U.S., China and England," said Micky Malka, a general partner at venture capital firm Ribbit Capital and a board member of conference host Bitcoin Foundation.

Malka said he has seen an increased interest in bitcoin over the past few months in the Silicon Valley venture capital community. An average round of funding for a bitcoin-related company drew in $1 million or $2 million in 2013, he said, but now routinely exceeds $20 million.

"(There is) momentum of serious committed entrepreneurs diving into building something with this technology," he said. "Venture investors are backing them and really starting to believe we can improve people's lives."

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But the increasing acceptance of bitcoin beyond Silicon Valley may also be driving the trend.

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Bitcoin up 80% from April lows