THE BITCOIN RESURGENCE | The price of the virtual currency Bitcoin has surged after a quiet period, Nathaniel Popper reports in DealBook. Signs of interest from China and Wall Street have kicked off a speculative frenzy. The price for Bitcoin has been rising for a few weeks and spiked above $500 on Wednesday, bringing the value of a single coin up 100 percent from a month ago. It sank back to $400 by the end of the day. The currency had been in decline after the collapse in 2014 of Mt. Gox, which was once the biggest Bitcoin exchange. The use of the currency for drug payments and ransom payments also dampened interest in it. The surge in demand came from China, spurred by a drop in the stock market and the emergence of a new Ponzi scheme tied to Bitcoin. The price there has been rising faster than in the rest of the world. This drew interest from speculators betting more on the future of the currency than on its current use. Skepticism of Bitcoin has not abated, but the companies that handle the bulk of transactions seem stronger than those of the past. New York’s top financial regulator granted trust company charters to two Bitcoin exchanges, which are in operation along with Coinbase, in California, the largest in the country. Financial firms have also been studying Bitcoin’s underlying technology, particularly the blockchain ledger in which Bitcoin transactions are recorded, although they insist that they do not want to use blockchains tied to Bitcoin.

INTEREST RATE INCREASE IN DECEMBER IS STILL POSSIBLE | The Federal Reserve could still raise its benchmark interest rate in December as long as economic growth continues, Binyamin Appelbaum reports in The New York Times. Janet L. Yellen, the Fed chairwoman, told the House Financial Services Committee that the economy was performing well and that “it could be appropriate” to raise rates at the Fed’s final policy meeting of the year. She stressed that no decision had been made and that the timing rested on the next few rounds of economic data. William C. Dudley, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, echoed her words a few hours later. Ms. Yellen still needs to get a consensus from the members of her own committee who disagree over the benefits of waiting until next year. The messages made an impression on investors who have been slow to accept that the Fed may finally be ready to raise rates. Yields on two-year Treasury securities, closely tied to expectations about Fed policy, climbed to 0.84 percent, the highest level since spring 2011. In effect, that means the Fed is already starting to tighten financial conditions even as officials continue to wrestle over how soon to end seven years of near-zero short-term rates.

A 1975 LAW COMPLICATES PUERTO RICO’S DEBT CRISIS | A bill introduced in 1975 is making it harder for Washington to help Puerto Rico,

Mary Williams Walsh reports in DealBook. It prevents the Securities and Exchange Commission from making states and local governments submit to the same kind of scrutiny that companies must endure before sending their securities to market. When New York City went broke in 1975, federal securities regulators were worried about more financial failures in other municipalities. They wanted Congress to force states and cities to provide financial information about bonds they were going to sell to raise money. Cities wanted no part in that and rallied around the Constitution’s separation-of-powers doctrine. John Tower, a Republican senator from Texas, introduced a bill to keep the feds at bay. There are signs that policy makers see Puerto Rico’s issues as proof that the hands-off approach that the S.E.C. has taken to the $3.7 trillion municipal bond market is part of the problem. The lack of oversight and transparency means the island’s government has not provided Congress with accurate numbers that explain its financial needs. Investors are also in the dark. Even Puerto Rico’s governor, Alejandro García Padilla, acknowledged the absence of accurate information had hampered the islands ability to return to fiscal health. Representative Nydia M. Velázquez, Democrat of New York, has introduced a bill that would require improved disclosures from the hedge funds and alternative investment firms that have been snapping up the bonds of distressed jurisdictions. She says the funds and firms representing bondholders are maneuvering behind the scenes to protect their stakes. She says she believes the unwillingness of these investors to renegotiate their bond payments is forcing Puerto Rico to reduce its government services. The bill is not a move to repeal the Tower amendment, but would require greater disclosure of positions taken in derivatives, such as interest-rate swaps, which were a popular hedging tool for variable-rate municipal bonds in the past. Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, and Richard Ravitch, a former lieutenant governor of New York, did, however, called on Congress to re-examine the Tower Amendment last year, after leading a study of hidden financial weakness at the state level.

ON THE AGENDA | The Bank of England will announce its decision on whether to change the benchmark interest rate at 7 a.m. It will also release its latest inflation report. The New York Federal Reserve’s conference on reforming culture and behavior in the financial services industry starts at 8 a.m. The discussion between Christine Lagarde and Stanley Fischer starts at 8:45 a.m. The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s conference on the future of large, internationally active banks, starts at 9:40 a.m. Ben Bernanke will speak about Federal Reserve policy in an international context at 4 p.m. as part of the I.M.F.’s annual research conference.