Well, it appears that Bitcoin didn’t survive the 12 days of Christmas very well.
Christmas 2017 will be remembered for bitcoin and crypto-currencies, all 1,200 of them. Everyone was talking about cryptocurrencies, literally everyone and ICO’s (Initial Coin Offerrings). And many people were ‘investing’. Speculators, sorry investors, thought they were making silly money. Just before Christmas the Chicago Board Options Exchange allowed trading of this futures contract. Many people were over the moon and started referring to bitcoin as an asset, not a currency. Of course, when most people think of an asset we tend to think of it as something tangible which bitcoin is not. You can always take delivery of corn, oil, coffee or gold and they all have real uses. I’m not quite sure what’s delivered when you decide to take delivery of bitcoins.
This of course didn’t stop the proponents of bitcoin from saying that currencies have nothing behind them (kind of true, but they do have the government and economy of the country behind them) but bitcoin was an asset. Many people fell for this and jumped in. They thought they were buying assets and that the asset could only increase in value. Never mind that you can never guarantee something will increase in value but there is no ‘something’. It’s a digital fiction. Added to this, 10 people own 40% of all the bitcoins……
Sadly these presents were returned in January at half the value they had at Christmas. Here’s part of the reason why http://ow.ly/HprG30hYx7e. If you’re a speculator, I reckon the futures contracts are a winner as you can deal in bitcoin using real money and make, or lose, real money. If you’re an investor, it’s probably better to steer clear.
PS Don’t get me wrong. I actually believe in the theory of a crypto-currency, but not like we have now.