Who is to blame for bitcoin mania?

Abstract

The bitcoin's creation in 2009 was a warranted response of adversely affected individuals and entities to Lehman Brothers' collapse. What was the most noteworthy global financial and economic event of 2017? Arguably, it was the stratospheric rise of bitcoin. During 2017, its price rose from $952 to $14,310, even after dropping from its peak of around $19,000 in mid-December 2017 (bitcoin prices vary by exchange). This 15-fold rise is truly phenomenal, after more than doubling in 2016, and from a high level of nearly $1,000. Keep in mind that the earliest year-end price recorded in Bloomberg is 30 cents in 2010, and its 2012 year-end price was about $13.

Along with this rise, there was a huge proliferation in the number of cryptocurrency issues, apart from the relatively established ones: Ethereum and Ripple. The proliferation is so widespread that even a college girl in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, was mining bitcoin, and, according to news reports, she has written an app that updates users about the prices of about 1,000 “cryptos" in 32 countries. Read more at: https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/gsLYiPqSKAtTu8huQ7l1mL/Who-is-to-blame-for-bitcoin-mania.html