Back in September, I was trying to decide if I wanted to buy some bitcoins after hearing about them in a podcast. My plan was to buy a few bitcoins, sit on them for a while, and hope they appreciated in value. Ultimately, I did not pursue this goal after my graduate school situation ate up a large chunk of the money I’d set aside for this purpose.
I agonized over that decision after bitcoins went skyrocketing in value from $140/coin to over $1100/coin. I was convinced that the money train had left the station and I wasn’t on it.
Now, though, I’m starting to think that maybe I’m better off not worrying about it. I don’t think I really need this much stress in my life:
Ye gods, that’s a bit of a roller coaster, isn’t it? I’m not an economist but I’m pretty sure that currency value isn’t supposed to do something like that. It sort of makes it hard to know how much money you actually have when the value of your currency could fluctuate at seemingly any moment.
I’m not predicting the death of bitcoin, not when it’s still valued at nearly four times the value when I first considered buying. I’m just saying that if I had a sizable chunk of money tied up in this, I’m sure I would have had a small heart attack during some of these falls.
Cynical Idealism 
It’s acting a lot like the stock market right now. You could overlay the dates of news events, marked either “good” or “bad” and see how the prices trend before and after. US recommends bitcoin as having benefits? Price skyrockets. China restricts purchase and investment in bitcoins? Price collapses.