I've been looking at it lately though and thinking that it surely must drop back soon. I'm thinking a drop back down to 15 us is reasonable.
Right now its proponents are valuing it like a tech startup stock- what's its potential future value?
Its opponents have already decided it will fail.
Either side may be right at this point, though bitcoin has more going for it than it did six months ago.
To me, the trend is currently towards "it's going to work", so I think it's worth a gamble. But it's definitely a gamble.
I think cryptocurrency is without question a force for the future. It makes exchanging money too easy and too fast for it not to eventually dominate economic systems. Economies/companies that don't use it will be at a disadvantage.
What's in doubt for me is whether bitcoin will be the winner of the cryptocurrency market.
Right now it is an investment vehicle for speculation. And the crazy volatility suggests to me that most people won't feel comfortable using this as a currency for transactions, until the volatility decreases immensely.
It's the hope of some in the bitcoin community/industry that bitcoin becomes one of the top 3 currencies in the world.
Given that there is a hard limit of ~ 21 million bitcoins (half of which have already been given out), the only way to get in the top 3, is for each bitcoin to be massively valued.