As we begin 2015, today King World News takes a look at the magnificent rise and fall of Bitcoin as well as what the future holds for the battered cryptocurrency.  Below there are some amazing stats about Bitcoin and its future, and an even more astonishing quote from one of its biggest critics.

On December 8, 2013, with the price of Bitcoin near its all-time high, Bill Fleckenstein issued this ominous warning to King World News:  "It (Bitcoin) is a giant chain-letter.  Everyone will lose all of their money that puts money in it.  It's a complete joke.  Even a crappy currency has government taxing ability behind it, or some sort of a standing army or something like that.  Bitcoin is nothing.  It's dot-com mania 3.0 just moved one step over, right?  People are so enamored with communication with their phone and online commerce and all of that.  Now they've invented what they call a currency to mess around with it, and people are speculating in it the same way they speculated in this other crap.  It's not a currency at all, it's a complete joke."

The chart below shows how timely Bill Fleckenstein's warning was regarding the Bitcoin craze:

King World News Bitcoin

Since Fleckenstein issued that timely warning, the price of Bitcoin has plunged to a recent low of $257.71.  The key question now:  Having plunged more than 72 percent from the peak of a lower high set on January 6, 2014, is there hope for the battered cryptocurrency?  

Well, since January of 2013, the amount of money invested in Bitcoin startups has grown more than 100-fold.  And even with the collapse in the price of Bitcoins, today they are worth more than 20-times what they were worth at the start of 2013.  

There is no question that 2015 will be an important year for Bitcoin.  All Bitcoins today are worth nearly $5 billion.  We will just have to wait and see if transactions in the cryptocurrency increase.  Meaning, for Bitcoin to be a success, use of the digital currency by the public will have to dramatically increase. 

KWN has now released Bill Fleckenstein's latest remarkable audio interview — one of his best ever — and you can listen to it by CLICKING HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.

King World News - Bill Fleckenstein - MP3

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The audio interviews with Michael Pento, Bill Fleckenstein, David Stockman, Dr. Philippa Malmgren, Egon von Greyerz, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Stephen Leeb, Andrew Maguire, John Embry, Gerald Celente, Rick Rule, Ben Davies, William Kaye, Rick Santelli, John Mauldin and Marc Faber are available now. Other recent KWN interviews include Jim Grant and Felix Zulauf — to listen CLICK HERE.

Eric King
KingWorldNews.com