The wild week of Bitcoin

This week has been a rollercoaster ride for Bitcoin – and could signal an equally unpredictable future.
What happened this week?
The eight-year-old cryptocurrency has pulled in droves of investors in recent months. But this week it hit record-breaking highs, soaring over $10,000 (£7,493) in value. At the start of 2017 a Bitcoin was worth just $1,000.
And yet within 24 hours of hitting the benchmark it had climbed past $11,000 before losing nearly 20% of its value, to just barely $9,000.
This rollercoaster ride, and resulting headlines, prompted the Bank of England to warn “investors should do their homework” on Bitcoin: some say the currency is peaking and based on nothing but a speculative bubble, while others feel it could have further to rise.
“This week is no different,” says David Yermack, professor of finance and business transformation at New York University. “Bitcoin has always been very volatile. Anybody who invests should have a large amount of risk tolerance.”