Bitcoin rises above $16,000

Bitcoin rallied Tuesday, recovering from a sharp sell-off late last week.

The digital currency briefly climbed more than 12.5 percent to above $16,100 late Tuesday morning, according to Coinbase, the leading U.S. platform for trading major digital currencies.

With Tuesday's gains, bitcoin has now recovered more than 50 percent from a low of $10,400 hit Friday in an extremely volatile day of trading that had no immediately apparent explanation behind it.