Bitcoin has surged to new heights in recent weeks after the U.N. imposed sanctions against North Korea and other countries accused of failing to prevent the spread of the virtual currency.

The price of one bitcoin has jumped to $1,300, up nearly 40 percent since the start of the year.

On Thursday, the value of one ounce of gold, a commonly used measure of the value and demand for a commodity, hit an all-time high of $1.3517 an ounce.

The surge in price of bitcoins is also fueling fears about the global financial system, as some analysts say the digital currency could take over the world.

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May has been critical of bitcoin, calling it a “scam” that could be used to commit fraud.

Last week, a U.R.C.I. report found that bitcoin is widely used by criminals and criminals are using it to launder money.

The U.C.-based agency warned that criminals are increasingly using bitcoin as a way to circumvent sanctions and to evade U.s. authorities.

“It’s easy to imagine a scenario where criminals use bitcoin to hide their wealth and evade U of S financial sanctions, and that’s a risk we should all be worried about,” said Scott Pye, U.A.E.’s director of research.

“The U.B. of Canada’s chief financial crime officer, Stephen Green, warned in February that Bitcoin could be a ‘dangerous new asset class’ for criminals to use to hide assets and evade tax obligations.”

But U.P. president Paul Kelly has repeatedly insisted that the U,S.

government has no intention of imposing new financial sanctions on bitcoin.

Uppsala University’s Bjorn Thorkelson, a leading economist on the digital currencies industry, told Bloomberg News in an interview on Wednesday that “it’s not the government’s job to dictate the market.”

“The way the US.

Treasury uses its control over foreign exchange rates is that they are set in international treaties that are agreed to by the member states,” Thorkelsen said.

That’s fine by us. “

We can say bitcoin is just one of many digital currencies, like ethereum and ethereum classic, which are traded on exchanges and not regulated by any government.

That’s fine by us.

But bitcoin isn’t regulated.

It’s unregulated.”

On Thursday afternoon, the U .

S.

Securities and Exchange Commission, the agency charged with policing the digital economy, issued a new round of guidance that said that any transaction involving bitcoin must be registered and recorded.

The guidance is a step forward for the agency that was already looking to take action against financial services firms and those using digital currencies for criminal purposes.

The SEC said it would consider issuing additional guidance to other digital currencies and cryptocurrencies.

“If an exchange is trading digital currency on a platform that is not subject to the registration requirements of the Exchange Act, it may be subject to a violation of the Act,” the agency said in a statement.

The agency also added that “there may be instances where trading digital currencies is in violation of laws relating to money transmission, money laundering, and securities regulation.”

On Wednesday, the SEC also told banks that if they are considering whether to sell their bitcoin or other digital currency-related assets, they should “consider whether they can be classified as securities or commodities subject to listing requirements.”

The agency warned banks that they would be subject in some cases to higher capital requirements if they did not comply with the rules.

The statement comes amid warnings from some in the financial industry that the digital asset could become a new tool to evade sanctions, as other countries impose tighter restrictions on the virtual currencies.

The government and some U. S. banks are looking to impose sanctions on some cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin, for their use as a means of payment, said Michael Kugelman, chief executive officer of Digital Currency Group, an industry trade group.

“They are looking at all these other digital assets and seeing what they can do to escape these restrictions,” he said.

In December, Uppsalarland, Sweden, said it was cutting off the country’s financial services provider from the bitcoin exchange that had become a haven for cyber criminals.

On Tuesday, the Swedish finance minister said that “in this case we have not seen a case where we have seen this kind of abuse, but there are other ways that it could happen, ” and he warned that such attacks would not stop anytime soon.

“That is why it is so important that there is more vigilance to this,” he told a news conference.