Digital currencies remain too risky
Bitcoin will turn 10 years old next month, so it’s time to check with the bitcoin trading desk, where the cryptocurrency craze appears just as foolish as it did a year ago.
One bitcoin is trading at $6,425, down from $19,650 on Dec. 16, 2017. Other popular cryptocurrencies have dropped even farther. We’re still waiting for last year’s predictions of $50,000 bitcoin to come true.
If they do, computer-driven trades will almost certainly have manipulated the market, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. And this perfectly legal gamesmanship is probably the only thing keeping bitcoin afloat, along with money launderers.
Bitcoin remains a largely unregulated, imagined currency that trades strings of code using blockchain technology. The blockchain verifies the amount of bitcoin available, records each transaction and shares a block of code as proof of ownership.
The blockchain is shared on all of the computers participating in the market while still guaranteeing anonymity. There is no central bank nor central regulatory authority since bitcoin is transnational. This statelessness
Gamesmanship is probably the only thing keeping bitcoin afloat, along with money launderers.
is what draws libertarians, criminals and speculators to bitcoin, the most famous of the cryptocurrencies.
This time last year, bitcoin captured the global imagination. People around the world created digital wallets and bought bitcoin, driving the price up from $909 at the beginning of 2017 to nearly $20,000 at the end.
“Strings of computer code will never become a true currency capable of holding value over time,” I wrote at the time. “And just as gravity holds us to