Bitcoin currency status and converter shows up on Google search result

New Delhi: Lately, there has bee so much craze around Bitcoins that even search engine giant Google seems to have taken note of it.

We tried searching Bitcoin in Google's search bar, thinking it would throw up some explanatory page. To our surprise, the first search result that popped up when we typed Bitcoin in Google's search bar was a currency conversion tool that showed the real time value of bitcoin vis-a-vis the Indian Rupee.

Since the start of October, bitcoin has more than tripled in price. So far this year it has soared about 15 fold, stoking concerns that the bubble would burst in dramatic fashion.

Its rapid rise has drawn in millions of new investors. So far this week, more than half a million new users have opened wallets with retail-focused bitcoin wallet provider Blockchain, the firm said, doubling the total number of users to 20 million since last year.

Further, if you click on the Disclaimer button, Google is actually showing Bitcoin in the Currency sectio.

Bitcoin lost almost a fifth of its value in 10 hours on Friday, having surged more than 40 percent in the preceding 48 hours, sparking fears the market may be heading for a price collapse.

In a hectic day on Thursday, bitcoin leapt from below $16,000 to $19,500 in less than an hour on the U.S.-based GDAX, one of the biggest exchanges globally, while it was still changing hands at about $15,900 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp. Some market watchers attributed the lurch higher to the coming launch of bitcoin futures on major exchanges.

Having then climbed to $16,666 on Bitstamp at around 0200 GMT on Friday, it tumbled to $13,482 by around 1200 GMT - a slide of more than 19 percent. It was last down 8.2 percent at $15,232.32 on BitStamp.