THE NEWS
Bitcoin’s Bubble
Cryptocurrencies are valuable, but dirty
BITCOIN NEVER seems to be far from the news, whether it’s for startling rises in price, dramatic crashes, or both within days. It has always been a unstable creation, but the real roller-coaster ride didn’t start until October 2020. Recently it has been particularly volatile; as we write, a coin is worth $39,750, although it could be vastly different by the time you read this. Just within the last month, it reached $59,000, and even hit over $63,000 in April. Go back a year, and it was “only” worth $10,000.
Predictions on where bitcoin will go next are pointless. Many maintain it will reach $250,000 or more within the next few years, which would bring its value to that of gold. Others forecast a fall of equally dramatic proportions. In February, Elon Musk backed it, and said Tesla would accept it as payment for cars. The price duly jumped. In mid- May, he changed his tune, and would no longer accept bitcoin, which prompted an equally sharp drop. Meanwhile, ethereum, the second biggest cryptocurrency, has surged. It started the year at $730, and recently reached over $3,000. Dogecoin, publicly backed by Musk after he ditched bitcoin, has also enjoyed a spike. It was started as a joke, and a coin was worth a fraction of a cent in January. Now it’s worth half a buck. Joke or not, some people just made a lot of money.