Remember Bitcoin? It was in the headlines frequently as it ripped from $200 to nearly $20,000, peaking in December of 2017. It then collapsed back to the $3,000 range over the next year. Bitcoin is making headlines again as the cryptocurrency hit a high near $14,000 this week before quickly falling back to the $12,000 level. Three researchers at Harvard have determined that parabolic rises in asset prices of the magnitude shown by Bitcoin in both its earlier and more recent leaps higher give way to crashes 80% of the time over a long and storied history of bubbles and collapses (“Bubbles for Fama”, Journal of Financial Economics). Of course, each bubble had plenty of proponents insisting that “it’s different this time”, and Bitcoin is no different. Mark Hulbert of Marketwatch.com created the graphic below to illustrate the researchers’ findings.
Can you say "bubble"?
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July 01, 2019