Despite this bumpy ride, federal regulators Friday gave the CME group the go-ahead on its plans to start trading bitcoin. This would be the first time the electronic currency would be traded on a major exchange, ABC News reported.
Considering it's a high stakes investment, could the cryptocurrency ever become sustainable?
Steve Keen, author of "Debunking Economics," told Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear with Brian Becker and John Kiriakou that he isn't sure whether the currency is here to stay.
"The question is: can [bitcoin] be used for transactions at the price it's currently selling for and does the infrastructure behind bitcoin enable transactions to actually be made at anything like a realistic basis for a capitalistic economy," Keen asks Kiriakou. "At the moment I'm not sure the answer to any of the questions is yes and they need to be yes to sustain this price rise."
"Whether one can take over the other — I just don't believe that the transactional capability of bitcoin is there to take over the transactional role that the current monetary [system] plays," Keen remarked.
Though there's no doubt that investing in bitcoin is good, Keen says the only way it'll become sustainable is if the trend of its value increase ceases.
"People are making a large amount of money… but I think at some point there has to be a break in that trend if it's ever going to be sustainable for transactions," Keen added.
