People have made a lot of money investing in bitcoins. Should I buy some?

By Timothy B. Lee Updated Nov 3, 2015, 10:03pm EST

Probably not. Bitcoin is an immature technology and holding it is extremely risky. Bitcoin’s value is highly volatile. If you buy at the wrong time, you could lose as much as 80 percent of your investment in a matter of days.

Even worse, bitcoins are difficult to store securely. You can save bitcoins using an online wallet service, but this type of service hasn’t had a great security record. Several wallet firms have gotten hacked or gone out of business, taking their customers’ deposits with them. You can also store bitcoins on your own hard drive, but then you’re vulnerable to hackers, hard drive failures, and other technical glitches.

So unless you have significant technical expertise and a healthy appetite for risk, you should probably leave this to the pros.

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