“The Guardian view on cryptocurrencies: blockchain of fools” – The Guardian | $8,196.15

The corresponding moment for the cryptocurrency bubble will only be discernible in retrospect, but we have some pretty strong candidates already….

The notional price of the main cryptocurrencies continues to shoot upwards in a way that makes nonsense of the idea that they have any value as a medium of exchange. Even if they were widely accepted by legal merchants, it would at the moment be lunatic to exchange them for anything but real money. Bitcoin itself is trading at more than $8,000, more than 10 times its price a year ago, and more than double what it was three months ago. Since it is only widely used as a currency in drug deals or for ransom payments, there is either a huge boom in criminal activities outside the world of cryptocurrencies, or one within unregulated exchanges where these tokens are traded.