Anyone who bought into bitcoin at the start of this year will be sitting on a very tidy profit about now. Back in January, the bitcoin was worth about $973. By the time we hit early November, the price had shot up to an incredible $7,600.
That’s an amazing rise, and anyone who bought in at the right time, i.e. at the start of this year or maybe even earlier, would now have every right to feel happy about their achievements.
But would this also be about the right time to sell?
You don’t need to look too far online to find plenty of stories about bitcoin’s rising value. You will also be likely to find lots of useful info on how to buy bitcoin while you’re looking for stories about the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is not the only virtual currency to generate such excitement, but it is certainly leading the pack.
So, how high could the price go? If you’d told someone at the start of 2017 that bitcoin would be worth 750% more by November than it was at that moment, would they have believed you? Are we heading for yet higher prices, and if so, will we then see a sharp fall?
Bitcoin likely won’t lead to as huge a disaster as a stock market crash or property crash, should the mentioned bitcoin bubble manifest itself. But it might still lead to disaster for those looking to get in on the market at the wrong time. It’s not just the continuing price rise that is gaining attention, it’s how fast this is happening. The scale of news reporting on the currency means it is reaching a wider audience. People who likely never even heard of bitcoin even a few short weeks ago might now be wondering whether they should get in on the act and try buying some to catch that price rise.
You can understand why. The price today is double what it was just six weeks ago. And since the price continues to rise, and is doing so faster than ever, you can see how people might imagine how high it will go in six weeks from now.
But is this going to be a fast and easy way to make money? Or will it be a cautionary tale of a cryptocurrency that has become way too popular and is about to crash? We shan’t know until the story is over, but no one can tell when that will happen. One thing worth noting is that bitcoin is exhibiting all the signs previously attributed to other crashes. Will those signs bear witness to yet another one here? And if so, are we about to hear the sound of another bubble bursting?