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Other fans point to this expansion in novel cryptocurrencies. Because of bitcoins maturity, and its particular focus on finance, if you want to buy some Ether, some Filecoins or any other cryptocurrency, its usually easiest to purchase bitcoin with your conventional currency and then trade bitcoin to your cryptocurrency of your choice.

Then theres the bubble argument. There, people assert that the vast majority of the purchase price rise is due simply to people buying bitcoin in the expectation that they can sell it later for a profit. A classic speculative bubble, a few people will create a great deal of money while others are going to lose everything. .

Few could argue that there isnt a good deal of speculation in the cryptocurrency marketplace. There are commercials on the London underground, and all over Instagram and Facebook, encouraging audiences to invest in cryptocurrencies and, judging from the amount of money flowing in to the ecosystem, so a lot of individuals are taking up the offer. .

At some point, those people will get flighty and try to cash out their gains. If enough do at once, the price of bitcoin will take such a fall that it will prompt a run and well observe the timeless crash.

But the real question is not if that will happen, however, when and just how big the crash is. Three times now, bitcoin has had boom-and-bust cycles that have seen enormous amounts of worth ruined, but have left the currency valued higher than it was before the prior boom began.

Following the crash that followed, one coin was worth $120.) Its not only a smooth ride up, but that doesnt mean its a total bubble. .

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Since the bitcoin network has grown, its hit issues. For dull, technical reasons, the network as it had been initially designed fights to deal with the amount of traffic which flows through these days, leaving huge flaws in the amount of time it takes for a transaction to be confirmed.

In a normal, centralised, business, that wouldnt be an issue: simply update the software and move on. However, a bitcoin upgrade requires convincing every single miner to accept the new applications otherwise, the miners who take on running the old version are efficiently running a completely different currency from people who have updated. .

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This can be known as a challenging fork, and for its first six decades of bitcoins lifetime, it was the nightmare each programmer tried to avoid. But recently, divisions among the community have become so fractious that numerous hard forks have happened, all around how to address this traffic slowdown.

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With names like Bitcoin Classic, Bitcoin Unlimited, and Bitcoin Gold, each claims that it is the genuine heir to this article the original vision but with every branch, the playing field becomes more crowded.

Nothing is ruined with each branch: if you had 100 bitcoin before Bitcoin Cash split off, following the split you still had 100 bitcoin and you'd 100 Bitcoin Cash. But with each fork, the playing field gets more crowded, more confusing for newcomers, and the total reputation for (relative) stability becomes more eroded.

It varies greatly. Some, like JP Morgan Chase head, Jamie Dimon, are extremely dismissive of the entire thing, arguing that the most properties of bitcoin that make it so appealing as a kind of digital gold are why its doomed to remain a niche prospect. For Dimon and co workers, the volatility of its exchange rate, lack of any economic oversight to control monetary policy and absence of support in major nation states mean bitcoin cant truly replace pounds and dollars and is consequently a failure. .

Few disagree with that conclusion, however, some bankers point to additional advantages of the technology. The blockchain concept, they say, might be helpful in conventional banking also. Forget bitcoin itself and concentrate instead on the value of a distributed ledger. Imagine if each of the major banks substituted their normal book-keeping with one mutual, but still closed, database Might that help cut down on fraud and ensure a higher playing field.

And then, of course, you will find the advantages of bitcoin that conventional banking cant hope to compete - and doesnt want to. Can a shadow currency exist purely on the rear of drug dealing and cybercrime Quite possibly: both are big businesses, and neither shows any sign of going away. .

Craig Wright, who promised to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the elusive bitcoin inventor. Photograph: Mark Harrison/PA

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Hes still a mystery. The pseudonymous founder of bitcoin, Nakamoto appeared out of nowhere in 2008 when he published the white paper that described how his proposed digital currency would work. While he was active in the online community around bitcoin for the first couple of years of their currencies lifetime, he published less and less, making his final ever post on 12 December 2010. .