Bitcoin just hit an all-time high — here's how you buy and sell it

Reuters

Bitcoin hit a record high of $16,623 per coin on Thursday, December 7.

Two years ago, the idea of buying the virtual currency even at that price was laughable. After a rapid rise in value in 2013, the cryptocurrency's value more than halved by mid-2015.

At its lowest point, one bitcoin was equal to about $230.

Given the currency's covert nature, the average person still may not understand how buying and selling actually works.

Using the app Coinbase, which lets anyone trade bitcoins for a small fee, we decided to find out.

A brief warning: If you're going to do this, tell your bank you're about to buy bitcoin. More on that later.

And to read more about blockchain, the technology powering bitcoin, click here.

This is what the Coinbase app looks like on an iPhone.

When you first open the app, you're presented with the latest price of bitcoin and its change within a certain period. You can see in the chart below how wild the latest moves have been. (We bought the bitcoin in January 2017.)

I happen to be one of the many who have never traded bitcoin before. There's a certain level of wariness in buying into the cryptocurrency world.