The lack of backing from any government or established institution has concerned many large banks. The chief executive of Credit Suisse, Tidjane Thiam, said last week that he saw no inherent value in Bitcoin, joining the list of bankers who have called the market a bubble.

But some financial leaders, including Goldman Sachs’s chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, and Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, have defended the idea that virtual currencies could one day play a role in the global financial system because they can be obtained by anyone with internet access.

The debate about Bitcoin has been part of a broader explosion of interest this year in the various technological concepts introduced by the virtual currency. Many banks, including JPMorgan, have been trying to find ways to create their own decentralized databases, like the Bitcoin blockchain, that could provide a more reliable and secure way to track information.

In the technology industry, there has been a rush this year of so-called initial coin offerings, a way for entrepreneurs to raise money by creating and selling their own custom virtual currencies. Initial coin offerings have taken over $3 billion from investors this year after attracting almost no interest before.

These coin offerings have created their own demand for Bitcoin because the new coins generally have to be bought with an existing virtual currency like Bitcoin.

The interest in Bitcoin could be dampened in the coming weeks, however, by a debate among Bitcoin followers.