Another day, another Bitcoin milestone passed. The world’s first and largest cryptocurrency surpassed the $4,000 (£3083) mark with the new all-time high for Bitcoin sitting at $4,235.83 (£3264.36) as I’m writing this.
This latest milestone marks the currency’s seemingly unstoppable surge since the beginning of the year. In January, Bitcoin was trading at less than $1,000 (£770) per coin. Now the unstoppable cryptocoins are worth more than four times that amount. Those who were first off the mark will be jumping for joy (and I’m kicking myself for not getting on the bandwagon).
Experts remain optimistic about Bitcoin’s potential, yet some are beginning to fear that it has entered a bubble. Still, the trend seems to be in favour of its continued success. No one knows for sure what the future of Bitcoin — or cryptocurrencies in general — will look like but with the continued success we could see a smattering of others start to pop up.
Is Bitcoin simply a 21st-century version of gold, only without the storage issues? Or is it just a short-lived popular fad that may soon evolve into something quite different? With the growth of a cashless society that I spoke about in December 2016 – (29% of the UK who would rather use a smart device for contactless payments and 50% of the UK believe that cashless payments are as secure as cash) whether this will correlate with the monster that is Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, time will tell. The only certainty is that its price will remain very volatile in the future.
Also whilst writing this I stumbled across a story of someone selling 10,000 BTC for $50 (£38) and as of this morning that would be worth £32 million… livid.
