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09:30 AM
Adam Wyatt
Adam Wyatt
Commentary
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Why There's Confusion Over Valuing Bitcoin

Bitcoin presents a new type of nontraditional, highly technical, experimental, and global digital instrument to our already complex world. That fact should not conjure fear. It should engender excitement.

When I caught wind of Bitcoin as a newly minted MBA in the summer of 2012, I immediately scoffed. At the time, one bitcoin was trading at around $10, with a total market cap of about $50 million, which I thought was outrageous. It was a new, unregulated, "imaginary" Internet currency. Even though I initially rejected the idea as utopian, it stuck with me for some time thereafter.

Fast forward to early 2013, when the European banking crisis was reaching a fever pitch and Cyprus was on the verge of the first modern bank "bail-in." As the bitcoin price began to rise rapidly on a daily basis, and the situation in Europe continued to deteriorate, I decided to remove my "I know everything" MBA grad cap for an "I know nothing" crypto dunce cap. And, boy, am I glad I did.

The more I read, watched, and listened to bitcoin experts attempt to explain the most confusing and thought-provoking advancement since the Internet, the more fascinated I became, not only with the idea of frictionless transactions, but also by the idea of stateless currency.

Given the complexity of bitcoin (economic, financial, political, ideological), there are many topics of discussion that deserve specific attention in their own right. The Digital Currency Council does an excellent job of providing an overview of these issues in its free courses. In today's piece, we will focus on one of my favorite, and most misunderstood, topics: bitcoin valuation.

[Click here to read the full story on Wall Street & Technology]

Adam K. Wyatt is Chief Analyst and Editor at BullBearAnalytics, a division of Digital Currency Research LLC, an informational financial publishing firm focusing on digital currency trading, investing, and education. Adam graduated with a BA in Economics and Political Science ... View Full Bio

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