Watching the recent rise and fall in Bitcoin is enough to make you sick, or if you’re lucky, rich.
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Investors have been sweating over the past week as the world’s biggest cryptocurrency’s steady climb upwards peaked and plummeted.
After soaring to over $25K on Sunday, it lost around a third of its value in the five days leading up to Christmas to hit a low of around $15K on Friday, December 22, according to Coinbase data.
It was Bitcoin’s worst week since April 2013. But amid the madness, a Wagga crypto-convert thinks now is the time to buy.
After purchasing a modest 40 per cent of a Bitcoin in August when it was at $4,500, Rhys Bailey’s Bitcoin investment is now worth four times what he paid for it, though he’s since traded some value into other alternative currencies.
“The people that have only been through the rises are probably a bit scared and panicky now it’s dropping- but I’m more relaxed than when it was at $24K,” Mr Bailey said.
“This is what I was waiting for, you don’t want to buy at the top.”
After the fall, Bitcoin has recovered to sit at $20542.22 at 10.20am on Wednesday.
Mr Bailey currently has investments in six alternative currencies and is far from Bitcoin’s biggest fan.
“It’s ridiculously slow and expensive to transfer now compared to other cryptocurrencies like litecoin,” he said.
“Bitcoin is where all the hype is at the moment- a lot of people haven’t heard of anything else but in the next couple of years others will likely take its place.”
“I definitely think they’re the way of the future.”
He suggests potential buyers do their research and consider a cryptocurrency that works for them, while remaining alert for scams.
Cryptocurrency fans see peer-to-peer, decentralised digital currencies as a game changer, taking power out of the hands of banks.
While other alternative currencies such as Ethereum and Ripple soared at the beginning of last week, the market as a whole felt the strain.
Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at Tel Aviv-based online broker eToro told Bloomberg last week what goes up, must come down.
"The crypto market went to astronomical highs, so it's got to come back to reality," Greenspan said.
"Something that goes up 150 per cent in less than a month is probably going to have double-digit retracement."
