Bitcoin was introduced in 2009 as the first decentralized digital currency that can be used to make person to person payments and purchases where there is no intermediary e g banks involved The transaction is verified by a network of computers and recorded in publicly distributed ledgers called blockchain This currency is different from other currencies e.g dollar euro etc that we know of as it is not backed by any government and its value is highly volatile It has gained in value several hundred times over the last few months In 2017 the price of Bitcoin gained over 1200 starting from just over 1 000 a coin to well over 19 000 at its peak In my view this is a very risky investments for an average investor to put his hard earned money and expect a quick gain as it can lose its value in a matter of hours Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Options Exchange are the world s largest exchanges for future contracts and have begun listing Bitcoins in belief that success in launching future contracts could confer legitimacy to bitcoin and add a revenue stream for CBOE and CME Meyer and Stafford However by doing so riskier investments will become easily available to US investors leading to greater financial losses for the country should Bitcoins go down in value The fact that Bitcoin is not regulated by any government would lead to an uncontrollable situation if such a situation were to arise with no one to be held responsible unlike Enron or Lehman Brothers where some people went to jail Instead such investments would only fuel the greed of others to conduct limitless international transactions without knowing any limits or regulations
