1.2017 has been huge for Bitcoin. At the start of the year, the currency was trading for about $900 per coin. It bumped along, hitting $1,000 in February, before beginning its huge rally in late November that took it all the way up to $19,000, before crashing back down to $10,000. Following a rally in the last day or two, its back up to $15,000.
2) The big question now is what happens next. Bitcoin has done a lot of growing up in the last month, as professional investors have started taking a real interest in the currency. The first few months of 2018 are going to determine whether Bitcoin is a real investment, a viable currency, or a total bust.
3) Where Bitcoin prices go in the short term will largely depend on the regulatory environment. On the plus side for Bitcoin, its starting to be traded on traditional markets. Two big exchanges, the CME and CBOE are already offering Bitcoin trading to investors. The system is a little messy what theyre really offering is futures prices, based on the Bitcoin price averaged from a few big exchanges but the result is that investors can trade in Bitcoin on a secured, non-hackable, reputable exchange. But at the same time, the main US regulator, the SEC, warned this month that theres substantially less investor protection than in our traditional securities markets, with correspondingly greater opportunities for fraud and manipulation.
4) Investors are also at risk from exchanges collapsing, or being hacked: most hobby speculators store their Bitcoin in a wallet kept with one of the big cryptocurrency exchanges, which makes them accessible to hackers. Bitcoin exchanges have been plundered by hackers in the past, and with the increased value of Bitcoin, youd imagine its just a matter of time until a hack happens.
5) The price of bitcoin is down more than 25 percent from an all-time high of nearly $20,000 reached this past weekend, market data shows.
Prices fell to as low as $14,502 to start today's trading session, according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index (BPI), about 27 percent from the all-time high of $19,783 reported on Dec. 17.
6)Overall, bitcoin has seen several notable price drops following Sunday's gains, including a dip below $17,000 on Tuesday that accounted for a roughly $1,800 drop on the day. Indeed, analysts have suggested that the price could experience continued volatility as 2017 comes to a close and new money, brought in by bitcoin's meteoric gains, exits for fiat.