FT worries about a bubble in ... bitcoin

By Izabella Kaminska and Paul Murphy
Financial Times, London
Sunday, May 14, 2017

Sky-high valuations for bitcoin have helped the value of crypto-currencies burst through $50 billion, raising fears of an asset bubble in the unregulated market.

A growing number of alternative digital currencies -- or "alt-coins" -- is feeding the speculative frenzy with values in some rocketing as much as 500 percent in the past week.
A sharp spike in the price of bitcoin, which has risen 55 percent this month and is worth more than gold, pushed it past $1,900 on the Bitfinex exchange on Friday.

The speculation has benefited anonymous payment systems, which are being used by cyber criminals executing widescale attacks such as the "ransomware" hack that spread across the world on Friday.

Aside from bitcoin, there are more than 830 alt-coins ranging from Litecoin, a challenger to bitcoin, to MiketheMug, a coin that promises to make weekly payouts to holders. ...

... For the remainder of the report:

https://www.ft.com/content/ce3ef54e-371b-11e7...e4-9023f8c0fd2e