Bitcoin's price set a new record on Saturday as the virtual currency rose above $19,000 for the first time on the Bitstamp exchange. One CNBC survey this week found that 80 percent of Wall Street economists and market strategists saw bitcoin's rise as a bubble, compared to just two percent who said the currency's value was justified.
"A lot of bubbles historically involve some kind of new financial technology the effects of which people can't really predict," said William Deringer, an historian at MIT.
Of course many bitcoin traders are unlikely to take these warnings seriously because mainstream experts have described bitcoin as overvalued for years-only to see the currency rise to even greater heights. That's about a fifth of the roughly $1.5 trillion in gold held for private investment (when you factor in gold used for all purposes-government reserves, jewelry, and industrial uses-it's more like $7 trillion).
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