Bitcoin soared to fresh records Tuesday, putting it on course for $10,000, but the virtual currency’s stratospheric rise has fueled fears of a bubble after a 10-fold increase this year.
The cryptocurrency, launched in 2009 as a bit of encrypted software written by someone using the Japanese-sounding name Satoshi Nakamoto, has had a roller-coaster ride that has taken it from just a few U.S. cents to its current sky-high valuation.
Traded on specialist platforms, with no legal exchange rate and no central bank backing it, Bitcoin is monitored and regulated by its community of users, and is used to buy everything from pizza to a pint in a London pub.
But it has attracted widespread criticism, from financial industry titans to governments.
JP Morgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon in September slammed the unit as a “fraud” and said he would fire his employees if they were caught trading it, while China has shut down Bitcoin trading platforms and South Korea’s prime minister Tuesday voiced fears it could lead the young to get involved in fraudulent crime.
Still, the opposition has not stopped a dizzying surge in bitcoin this year, with its value jumping a 2017 low of $752 in mid-January to a record high above $9,895 Tuesday afternoon. Its value has rise about 45 percent in the past two weeks alone.
It's in some sort of a bubble, but not at all like the tulip mania in The Netherlands, a couple centuries ago. This bubble has some sort of a piece of value behind it. It's because we're able to use ti for transactions, etc.. Just like we'd use the dollar. And is the dollar in a bubble? I don't think so.
Bitcoin's true value is probably below its current value of $10k, but it's definitely not an insane bubble.
I feel like it will collapse sometime in the future, but as it gets more and more accepted, its "collapse cap" keeps increasing. It's a bit over-hyped, but it's not going to drop 90% anytime soon.
All we can do is speculate though
