- 3 years ago bitcoin was an esoteric invention that only few hackers have heard about.
- 2 years ago people started to discuss its implications, legal position and the entrepreneurial opportunities around it.
- Today (early 2016) the financial media reports about it alongside other currencies and commodities in days of market volatility. Regulators are taking steps, some theoretical and some practical, to define it and deal with it. Those who haven't banned it assume that it's here to stay. Hundreds of well funded companies in the world are tackling problems in this emerging ecosystem. The bitcoin transaction rate goes up and its volatility has been relatively tame during 2015... Bitcoin is the largest digital currency by far. In fact it is probably still 10 times larger than all other cryptocurrencies combined. While the network is still in its infancy, it is growing bigger and bigger everyday. What that means for the price of Bitcoin in terms of speculation, I leave for individuals to decide. But it is not an infinite electronic resource - there will only ever be so many bitcoins. There is always a risk that its price would go to zero, but it could easily go in the other direction as well, and who knows where it would stop. After all, if one day far from now every single financial transaction in the world is written to the Bitcoin Blockchain, the value of a single Bitcoin could be astronomical.
I think if we continue on the path we've been on it'll always be a good time to buy bitcoin for the long run, depending of course what you use it for.