Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency, emerged more than a decade ago out of the ashes of the global financial crisis as a bypass to the banks and government agencies mired in Wall Street’s great calamity at the time. The digital token steadily gained a following, inspired a rash of wannabes and endured some wild rides. But it wasn’t until the next big crisis, Covid-19, that the market really took off.
To cryptocurrency true believers, Bitcoin is the ultimate store of value, the most solid hedge against the rampant inflation manufactured by reckless central banks and their money-printing. To skeptics, the crypto world as a whole is a mirage whose massive run-up past US$2 trillion ($2.71 trillion) was simply the speculative byproduct of the extraordinary amount of easy cash that’s been sloshing around in the global economy — in effect, a big bubble.
Both of those theories are about to face their biggest test yet.
