Bitcoin has come a long way over the years, and it cam especially far this year. Despite being the worst-performing currency of the year in 2014, the digital currency managed to completely turn things around this year to become the best-performing currency in 2015. It’s value jumped by around 40% this year, and is sitting at $430.91 at the time or writing. There’s been a lot of interest in the blockchain technology that powers Bitcoin in recent months, which has the potential to revolutionize a number of areas, particularly the finance industry and the Internet as a whole.
Investing in Bitcoin can be an emotional rollercoaster as it’s one of the most unstable currencies around. Yet despite all of the negativity associated with the cryptocurrency this year, it was Bitcoin that finished 2015 as the top-performing currency. Last year wasn’t kind to the hot-topic cryptocurrency. After peaking at around $1,130 in 2013, Bitcoin’s value plummeted 56 percent in 2014 and finished as the worst-performing currency of the year. A year later, the tide has turned in Bitcoin’s favor. In 2015, Bitcoin gained close to 40 percent – far outpacing its closest competition. In true Bitcoin volatile fashion, the gains didn’t take place steadily over the course of the year but rather, in the past couple of months. From January through mid-October, the currency remained at or below the $300 mark. In the last month alone, its value shot up well past the $450 mark and is sitting at $423.64 as of writing. Likely helping to drive up the value late in the year is growing interest in the blockchain technology that powers Bitcoin and the alleged discovery of its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Earlier this month, both Gizmodo and Wired published stories on the same day claiming to have uncovered the identity of Bitcoin’s founder. The two publications honed in on Craig Steven Wright, a 44-year-old Australian that they claim fit nearly every facet of the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto.
