Bitcoins and Bubbles

If you're even considering getting involved with Bitcoin (and, for that matter, even if you're not), read the classic "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay (read for free here, listen to a free audiobook here, or read free on Kindle here), chronicling centuries of irrational investment crazes. It's an amazing, entertaining read, and will inoculate you against this perennial viral foolishness.

These bubbles appear periodically, usually right around the point where memory's dimmed about the previous one. I hear people are now re-mortgaging their houses to buy Bitcoins. Also that the Russians are exploiting and manipulating the market as a way to evade sanctions - and perhaps in order to cause further chaos in the West. What could go wrong?


Please don't comment or email me about how this bubble is different and you're going to make a jillion dollars. It's not, and you won't.