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.