Bitcoin rebounds, passes $15,000 as it recovers from last week’s brutal selloff

Bitcoin rallied past $15,000 on Tuesday as the world’s biggest digital currency sought to draw a line under its roller coaster five-day slump.

The tokens rose 10 percent to $15,084.86 as of 9:20 a.m. in London, their biggest gain on a closing basis in two weeks and the first in six days. Rival currencies litecoin and ethereum are up 3.4 percent and 3.6 percent, respectively, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

In what was seen as a major test for the nascent digital currency industry, bitcoin declined 26 percent in the five days through Monday as confidence in cryptocurrencies was rattled following several warnings from financial authorities. The advance suggests investor interest may still be intact, at least for now.

“The most important question facing it is whether the recent price correction will prove to be what market participants refer to as ‘healthy’,” Mohammed El-Erian wrote in a Bloomberg View column Tuesday. In other words, one that shakes out “excessive irrational exuberance, provides for the entry of institutional investors, encourages the development of market-deepening products, and widens and balances out the investor base and the product offering,” he said.