Bitcoin raced past an astonishing rate this Friday morning, at an alarming level of $18,000 creating such a frenzy as the demand for coins crippled the exchanges including some of the most prominent providers. The most popular currency rallied more than $3000 in the past 48 hours as bitcoin surged into the mainstream demand expands.

Coinbase revealed record levels of new investors that had slowed their systems causing outages and slow transactions. Coinbase added at least 300,000 users since just before the Thanksgiving holiday. While the wallet service Trezor expressed concerns as they tweeted "minor issues."

The digital currency’s listed on exchanges at $16,096,60 18:00 p.m. (Thursday) and the market capitalization at $269.24 billion. Coinbase prices reached $19,697 at 11:23 a.m. before dropping to $16,299 thirty minutes later.

The current swarm comes on expectations that new Bitcoin contracts to offer Bitcoin futures will increase demand, but some of the influential brokerages criticized those plans on Wednesday, stating to  regulators "the contracts have been rushed to market without enough due diligence." The Futures Industry Association on Wednesday received an open letter declaring that they have failed to get enough information relating to market participants on trading limits, stress tests, and the correct margin levels.