LONDON (AP) — The price of bitcoin surged through $10,000 on Wednesday, adding to its ten-fold jump in value this year and fueling a debate as to whether the virtual currency is gaining mainstream acceptance or is merely a bubble waiting to burst.

But as soon as bitcoin went through $10,000, it surged past $11,000, only to plummet from those lofty levels. The cost of buying one bitcoin as measured by the website Coindesk was hovering around $9,800, and was as low as $9,300 on Wednesday afternoon. A price of one bitcoin had been roughly $1,000 at the beginning of the year.

The vertiginous rise...