Tokyo, Dec 11 (IANS): The price of bitcoin rose over 10 per cent to 1.99 million yen ($17,594), coinciding with its futures debut on a major US stock exchange and after registering a sharp drop over the weekend.

The spike was registered at around 12 p.m., in Coincheck, one of the biggest bitcoin exchanges in Japan, after the Chicago Board Options Exchange began trading in bitcoin futures at 11 p.m. on Sunday, reports Efe news.

The value of the cryptocurrency had fallen to 1.5 million yen on Sunday after registering an upward trend in recent weeks owing to anticipations over its future debut in the stock market.

Apart from the CBOE, the US regulatory authority had also greenlighted trading of bitcoin futures at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the world's largest futures exchange, which will begin offering contracts on December 18, while the Nasdaq Index will offer similar contracts in 2018.

Products related to the virtual currency are also expected to be launched in Tokyo's financial markets from next year onward, a conglomerate of Tokyo-based companies had said.

Japan was one of the first countries in the world to legalize bitcoin, recognising it as a mode of payment in April, making it an important investment asset in the world's third biggest economy.

Bitcoin trading volume in yen accounts for 37.7 per cent of global trading volume in the digital currency, followed by the dollar, which accounts for 28.4 per cent, according to the CryptoCompare website.

Bitcoin is a decentralised virtual currency that made its debut in 2009, and is based on the "blockchain" technology, also used in other cryptocurrencies, where the material value is based in data encryption.