There is one asset escaping the pounding from the spreading coronavirus: bitcoin.

The largest cryptocurrency rose as high as US$9,142.80 yesterday, a level last seen in early November. Other coins rallied as well, with the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index gaining as much as 1.7 per cent to reach a more than two-month high.

The increases come after last week's poor performance in the run-up to the Chinese New Year celebrations, which some participants expected to trigger a slowdown in trading.

Potential explanations for the rally include bitcoin's potential new safe-haven status amid risk-off moves fuelled by the spread of the Wuhan virus.

JPMorgan Chase's Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou said that options on the cryptocurrency are "off to a decent start". "Some hedge funds who do not necessarily have a fundamental view on bitcoin direction could see opportunities in trading volatility," he wrote in a note last Friday.

Nomura Securities International's Charlie McElligott, in a note on Monday, pointed to US five-year real yields at the most negative since April 2017 "acting as a major bullish catalyst for gold and bitcoin".

Bitcoin is known to be volatile, having gone parabolic in late 2017 to reach about US$19,000, before tumbling back over the course of the next year.

Last year, it started above US$3,000 before spiking to nearly US$14,000 in June before ending last month at US$7,158.

BLOOMBERG