As of 2:18 Eastern Monday, a single bitcoin is worth $4,282—an all time high for the cryptocurrency, invented in 2008. The bitcoin-USD exchange has soared more than 200% this year, as investors in Korea and Japan increasingly seek to buy the cryptocurrency—some such investors are willing to pay premiums of up to 30%—and May’s New York Agreement helps it to accommodate expansion.

A wide array of investors have jumped on the bandwagon, some more enthusiastically than others. “Whether or not you believe in the merit of investing in cryptocurrencies…real dollars are at work here and warrant watching,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a note to clients, per Bloomberg.

Joshua M. Brown, a financial advisor at Ritholtz Wealth Management, is among those who, despite their skepticism, cannot resist BitCoin’s upside. When the cryptocurrency first became part of investors’ vernacular seven years ago, Brown observed in a blog post in mid-July describing his first-ever BitCoin purchase, it was subject to all the volatility that accompanies a “new and unproven” investment opportunity.

Now, though, the cryptocurrency has been hanging around in the public eye for quite a while, and recent developments such as the New York Agreement may lead to stabilization.

As a limited resource as well as a medium of exchange, Bitcoin has properties of a commodity as well as a currency, Goldman Sachs’ note to clients points out. The United States IRS does not recognize Bitcoin as legal tender but, rather, treats it as property for tax purposes.

BitCoin’s value is not supported by some inherently valuable asset like gold or silver, but the lack of such a standard is par for today’s currencies, according to Tim Courtney, CIO at Exencial Wealth Advisors.

“The first thing to understand is that, just like every other currency, there is no asset backing digital and cryptocurrencies,” Courtney told TheStreet. “In the past, some currencies were backed by gold or silver, but that’s no longer the case.”

Without any sort of backing, Bitcoin derives all of its value from supply and demand. BitCoins, in other words, are only worth what someone is willing to pay for them.

“When you see returns on digital currencies moving up, that means demand for them has outnumbered the sellers out there,” Courtney explained to TheStreet.

BitCoin will face a minefield of obstacles as it scales up to satisfy increasing demand. One such challenge could be unprecedented volatility. In late June, Ethereum, a cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin, dropped from $300 dollars to $0.10 on a single, multi-million-dollar exchange, CNBC reports.

Courtney observes, per TheStreet, that there was no way to reverse the trades, as there would have been had the crash involved “established assets.”

“…there is no security to your [cryptocurrency] trades if something unexpected happens,” Courtney told TheStreet.

‘”What we’ve been doing in the stock market to prevent flash crashes, they’re nowhere near that in the cryptocurrency market,” adds Joe Saluzzi, co-founder of Themis Trading, per CNBC.

Bitcoin also runs the risk of devaluing itself as it expands, Courtney says. He cites the “constrained supply” of Bitcoin as an integral part of its value—basic microeconomics principles hold that if a commodity is in high demand but short supply, its price will rise.

Yet, as Bitcoin expands to serve increasing demand, it will become less and less scarce, and may, therefore, lose much of its value. In other words, like any other currency that loses its scarcity, Bitcoin will be subject to inflation.

BitCoin has long been vulnerable to cyberattacks. As its popularity grows, it will increasingly become a target for hackers. Exchange services BTC-e and Bitfinex both reported being hacked last week, according to CNBC.

The security and anonymity of BitCoin make it a suitable platform through which to launder money, demand ransoms, and carry out other nefarious transactions. All transactions carried out on contraband distribution websites like the AlphaBay and Hamsa, both of which authorities shut down in July, are conducted via BitCoin. Late last month, alleged BTC-e operator Alex Vinnik was arrested on suspicion of having laundered more than $4 billion his clients generated through a variety of criminal enterprises.

“It’s hard to imagine the IRS, Treasury etc allowing anonymous transactions without any reporting becoming a global standard for US persons,” Brown wrote in his blog post.

Still, Brown says, he is not willing to miss out on the potential upside of an investment in BitCoin. “I’m old enough to realize that just because I don’t see a use for something, that doesn’t mean I won’t be proven wrong by others who do,” he writes.

Judging by the spikes in the cryptocurrency’s value—it seems to hit a new high every day, of late—plenty of other investors are indeed anxious to prove Brown wrong.

Featured Image via Flickr/Zach Copley