Ex- SEC Commissioner Suggests Owning Shares Of Companies That Use Bitcoin But Not The Currency Itself

It’s been a rough month for bitcoin investors. The price of a bitcoin dropped another 7 percent Thursday after one of the biggest Chinese exchanges is closing its doors. On Thursday, BTC China tweeted that it will cease operations at the end of the month as the Chinese government ramps up its crackdown on cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin prices topped $5,013 earlier this month but were trading at around $3,600 early Thursday, down more than 28 percent from their peak.

To make matters worse, some big names on Wall Street have blasted bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market this week.

“It’s worse than tulip bulbs,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Tuesday. “It won’t end well. It will blow up.”

Arthur Levitt, former commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said that just because the cryptocurrency markets are wildly speculative at the moment doesn’t mean cryptocurrencies are going away.

“It’s here to stay because of the disparity between countries where a monetary system is robust and countries where there is virtually no monetary system, this comes up as an alternative currency,” Levitt said.

Levitt said he would avoid investing directly in bitcoin due to its wild price fluctuations that are “hard to understand.” However, he said he would consider investing in companies that use or trade in bitcoin.

September has certainly taken its toll on the Bitcoin Investment Trust GBTC. The ETF is now down 43.7 percent since Sept. 1.

Bitcoin rival Ethereum isn’t faring much better lately. After trading above $400 earlier this summer, the price of ether dropped another 15 percent on Thursday to around $232.

Related Link: 4 Ways To Trade Bitcoin