Special Bitcoin Edition — Tech Week

We are dedicating this edition of Tech Week to the skyrocketing Bitcoin phenomenon.

To invest or not to invest? That is the question.
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To invest or not to invest? That is the question.

Bitcoin's value is rising so fast that most people are having a hard time wrapping their heads around it. To show you the meteoric rise of the cryptocurrency, here are all the articles we've written about the currency's "new record":

This week, Bitcoin reached another historic high at $19,220. If you are one of those people who just couldn't help but buy it, we've embedded a live feed below for you to track your investment. You are free to visit this page again and again. We won't mind.

Wall Street companies going in

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board Options Exchange, two major financial firms, will be getting into the Bitcoin business on December 10 and December 18, respectively. The significance here is that they will allow large investors to trade in futures. In layman's terms, you can invest or short Bitcoin.

Up until this entry, it wasn't easy to short bitcoin, but the launch of Bitcoin futures will change the equation completely, so wild volatility in Bitcoin's value is expected next week.

Bulgarian Government owns Bitcoin, a lot of it

213,519 Bitcoin to be exact, or in layman's terms, $3 billion. The Bulgarian authorities cracked down on a group of cybercriminals on May 19, 2017, seizing their Bitcoin. Their crime was using computer systems to avoid taxes. According to the press release, the offenders used Bitcoin as their main tool to move their money as it's harder to track.

What Bulgaria will do with so much Bitcoin is unknown. Maybe they'll use it to invest in Bitcoin futures.

People are retweeting a tweet to get free Bitcoin

A random guy with the Twitter handle @Joshwilkyyy tweeted the following and a bunch of people started retweeting with the hopes of making quick money.

Basically, what Josh offers is 1 Bitcoin each for 5 people as a Christmas gift because he has 1,500 of them. Is there any guarantee he will do it? Is there any indication he has 1,500 bitcoin? No one has any idea, but it wouldn't hurt to retweet him. And Josh is not your average Twitter attention-seeker. He teases with more tweets.

The Verge contacted him to verify his claim of owning 1,500 Bitcoin, but Josh, if that's his real name, didn't respond.

Long story short, it wouldn't hurt to test the market and buy some Bitcoin. But be warned: the market is very volatile and the risk is big enough to make you rich or to bankrupt you.

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