Stephen Gandel, Columnist

Rivals Erode Bitcoin's Store of Value

A big investing argument diminishes along with market share.

December 28, 2017 at 9:20 PM UTC

Corrected

December 29, 2017 at 1:45 PM UTC

Stephen Gandel is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering banking and equity markets. He was previously a deputy digital editor for Fortune and an economics blogger at Time. He has also covered finance and the housing market.

1514488205_GettyImages-888353088 — Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

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Bitcoin is hot, except when you compare it with ethereum or litecoin or bitcoin cash or some other digital currencies. Then it's just lukewarm. And that could be a problem.

The price of ethereum, the second-largest digital currency after bitcoin, is up nearly 9,100 percent this year to a recent $735. Litecoin is up just more than 5,600 percent. Bitcoin cash, an offshoot of bitcoin that was introduced just this summer, is already trading at more than $2,400 for each virtual coin. All of this makes bitcoin's 1,400 percent increase this year look puny. And remember that the stock market and probably many 401(k)'s are up a paltry 20 percent. And you thought you were having a good year.