Bitcoin briefly dropped more than $700 from a record high in less than two days, after a week of intense speculation by traders and investors.

The digital currency plunged nearly 12 percent from Thursday evening's price of $2,357.50 to a low of $2,067.10 on Friday, according to CoinDesk. Earlier on Thursday, bitcoin hit an all-time high of $2,791.69 before selling off.

Bitcoin traded near $2,268 Friday afternoon, according to CoinDesk.

Bitcoin 1-week performance

Source: CoinDesk

On each of the last four days, the digital currency rose more than $100 to the high for the day, climbing as much as $315 on Thursday, more than 40 percent higher for the week, before erasing those gains, CoinDesk data showed.

The advances came as the Digital Currency Group announced agreement on plans to improve bitcoin's technological development. New York also hosted two digital currency conferences this week: Consensus and Token Summit.

Chris Burniske, blockchain products lead at ARK Investment Management, tweeted Friday that people are "fatigued" from the conferences. He also pointed out that the total market value of cryptocurrencies has fallen about 10 percent from a recent peak of $90 billion.

Analysts had pointed to increased buying interest in other digital currencies as supporting bitcoin's surge.

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Some analysts forecast the week's runup in bitcoin would likely result in a major pullback soon.

But most anticipate that in the long run, bitcoin and the supporting blockchain technology will transform the world just as much as the internet did.

Despite Friday's losses, bitcoin remained more than 15 percent higher over the last seven days and up more than 100 percent for the year, according to CoinDesk. The digital currency first crossed above the psychologically key $2,000 last Saturday.

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