Bitcoin’s price, which surpassed the all time high of $1200 USD a coin; was holding out at $1260, has now dropped to $1190 due to Chinese exchanges blocking withdrawals. The stock markets have risen along side Bitcoin, and there is a chance that we are witnessing a pump across all financial securities not unlike the time before the 2008 financial crash of the financial markets.
Bitcoin’s price rise has happened at the same time as world stock markets and other financial markets have risen in value (or perceived value, which is key). This seems very similar to the pre-2008 financial pump before the markets crashed in 2008.
It is unlikely that one should invest a large amount of money at this point, only invest what you cant afford to loose, investment portfolios are best to be diverse. Bitcoin’s adoption seems to have been steady, but the block size debate capping Bitcoin blocks at 1MB will hinder further mainstream adoption.
It will be interesting to see what happens at this point, due to increasing regulation and exchanges blocking withdrawals in china, it is always recommended to store most of your Bitcoin holdings in your own wallets with keys under your control, hardware wallets and multisig wallets are highly recommended for this purpose.
The China authorities have said that the regulation will not be temporary and that this is the start of tighter controls on Chinese Bitcoin exchanges and Bitcoin related companies across the Peoples Republic of China.
We will update as more information on this becomes available.