Bitcoin Is an Escapist Safe Haven

Bitcoin is worth more than $1,000 for the first time since 2013, when it crossed that line very briefly. If one considers it a currency -- which is open to debate -- it would be the best-performing one in the world in the last 12 months: It has gained more than 150 percent against the U.S. dollar. That's a Donald Trump-like phenomenon in finance. It shows a rising demand for an alternative to traditional money.

Despite its rising price and profile, bitcoin is still something of a toy currency. It has rarely logged more than 300,000 daily transactions, significantly fewer than Croatia's national clearing system registers in that country's currency, the kuna. The number of merchants accepting bitcoin is growing, but it's still extremely challenging to use it as a principle currency, wherever you live. For practical purposes, it's mostly useful to people seeking to bypass their country's currency restrictions, as some Chinese and, for example, Venezuelans do. According to Coin Dance, last year the average weekly bitcoin trading volume quadrupled in Venezuela. Bitcoin trading volumes in Chinese yuan -- the currency responsible for 97 percent of all bitcoin trading -- are double what they were a year ago, according to CryptoCompare.