San Francisco (CNN Business)Everyone’s talking about cryptocurrencies, even if they don’t fully understand them. Some people are even investing in them.
Joining the craze is only getting easier. Apps like RobinHood and exchanges like CoinBase make investing in bitcoin, ether and a dizzying number of other digital currencies as simple as pointing and clicking. Even banks and brokerages are cashing in.
Although some people get rich, many more do not. That’s because cryptocurrencies are so volatile that a chart of their value looks like an EKG printout. The price of bitcoin rose more than 2,000% in 2017 to a record $20,000, but by early 2018, it had fallen more than 50%. For most of September, bitcoin was trading at just over $6,000.
