A chart showing the value of bitcoin on 31 December, 2017. Markets InsiderThe cryptocurrency was up more than 10% as of 6 p.m. on New Year's Eve 2017, according to data from Markets Insider.
Its value was $14,129 per coin, having gained more than $1,300 in value over a 24-hour period.
Bitcoin had a rocky ride over the Christmas period, swinging from below $13,000 to above $16,000 in the final week of the year.
Bitcoin was still down on its all-time high of $19,843 per coin, which it hit around December 17, 2017, before a sharp fall in which it briefly dipped below $11,000.
A chart showing the value of bitcoin over the course of 2017. Markets InsiderIf the price holds steady for the rest of New Year's Eve, Bitcoin will finish 2017 be up more than 1,300% from its value at the start of the year, when it was hovering around $1,000.
EXCLUSIVE FREE REPORT:
The Bitcoin 101 Report by the BI Intelligence Research Team.Get the Report Now »
NOW WATCH: Why your iPhone's battery life gets shorter over time
Bitcoin led the best-performing ETFs this year
As investors increasingly turn to passive investment vehicles such as ETFs, this year the funds saw record-breaking inflows of $476 billion and assets under management climb to $3.4 trillion. Even traditional money managers have rushed to launch their own exchange-traded funds. But the hot money has flowed into niche funds offering exposure to bitcoin, electric cars, robotics and artificial intelligence.Global X's Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF (BOTZ) saw its assets under management surge from $4 million to $1.5 billion in the last 12 months, the company said. BOTZ is among the top 20 ETFs this year, up 57 percent, according to the ETF.com.
Ark Web x.0 became the first ETF to invest in bitcoin via the Bitcoin Investment Trust in September 2015. The trust's underlying asset bitcoin has blown away the performance of traditional investments with gains of 1,400 percent this year.
GBTC itself holds about a tenth of bitcoin per share and is up more than 1,900 percent this year. But the bitcoin trust is riskier than most funds since it trades over-the-counter, rather than in a formal venue like the New York Stock Exchange. GBTC had $1.69 billion in assets under management, as of the end of November, according to its website.
"We're cognizant of the risks," Winton said. He said in addition to bitcoin's technological potential, the investment firm was interested in holding the digital currency because it wasn't as tied to the performance of traditional financial assets.
Ark's Innovation ETF also holds the Bitcoin Investment Trust, with a 5.8 percent weighting as of Thursday, according to the company's website.
Tesla has the second-greatest weighting at nearly 5.6 percent. Elon Musk's electric car company has soared more than 45 percent this year, despite the company's inability to deliver products on time while burning through billions in cash.
Again, Ark's Winton is betting the controversial company will do well.
"I believe that Tesla could be massively misunderstood by the investing public," Winton said. "I think they ultimately have the potential to be considered a software company."
For Winton, the bigger picture is the business opportunity in self-driving, or autonomous, vehicles providing an on-demand car service similar to Uber. He predicts the total market cap of companies involved in that business will reach more than $5 trillion by the early 2020s.
Most investors may not be thinking so far ahead, but they bet big on electric cars this year.
The Global X Lithium & Battery Tech ETF (LIT) saw its assets under management jump from $100 million at the start of the year to nearly $1.1 billion this week, according to Global X. The ETF is also one of the top-performing funds this year, up more than 63 percent, according to the Dec. 19 ETF.com report.
China is the biggest market for electric vehicles and is planning to phase out production and sale of fossil fuel cars. On Wednesday, authorities said they will extend a tax rebate on purchases of hybrid or electric cars to 2020. The policy was originally set to end this year.
Jay Jacobs, head of research at Global X, attributed the interest partly to the topics' popularity in the media.
"Thematic investing started growing very popular overall," Jacobs said in a phone interview with CNBC last week. "If robotics and lithium are really starting to happen, what else is out there?"
"Investors, from a thematic perspective, really want growth," he said.
Other top-performing ETFs this year included funds focused on the surge of growth in Chinese technology giants, such as the KraneShares CSI Internet ETF (KWEB) and the Emerging Markets Internet & Ecommerce ETF (EMQQ).
"It is unlikely that all the same theme-based ETFs top performance charts year after year," Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF and mutual fund research at CFRA, said in an email. "While [it is] not clear what will be in vogue in 2018, some of the best performers will return back to the middle of the [pack] while others will continue to shine."
"CFRA thinks technology will remain a focus when investors start the year with a risk-on mindset."
Bitcoin rebounds above $14,000 as buyers find a bottom
Bitcoin appeared to find a bottom Friday, rebounding above $14,000 after moves by South Korea to curb speculation and protect retail customers sent the cryptocurrency sliding Thursday.Bitcoin climbed as much as 8.3 percent tin Asian trading, before dropping back to trade 1.9 percent higher at $14,211 at 8:21 a.m. in New York, composite Bloomberg pricing showed.
The digital currency has slumped about 27 percent from its record $19,511 reached on Dec. 18, when CME Group Inc. introduced its futures contract. While bitcoin’s debut on regulated derivatives exchanges in Chicago was thought to have given it a new mainstream channel for investors to tap, so far trading volume has been limited.
© Provided by Bloomberg LP Thin Volumes
"Short-term support is about $13,500 -- we’ve hit that the last
couple of trading sessions," Chris Gersch, director of strategy at
alternative investment management firm Bell Curve Capital LP in Chicago,
said on Bloomberg Television. "Ultimately I think it moves lower and
tests last week’s lows around $12,400 in the futures contract," he said,
referring to the CME version.The South Korean government has been among the loudest voices of concern about a possible speculative bubble in the largest cryptocurrency, which is still up about 1,500 percent for the year. The country is something of a bellwether for global demand, with South Koreans paying premiums about 20 percent over prevailing international rates as of Friday.
