People are putting their homes at risk to buy Bitcoin
- Bitcoin hit a new all-time high on Monday.
- The cryptocurrency has soared over the last two years, and regular Americans have started to get interested.
- Some people have reportedly taken out mortgages to buy Bitcoin, while others are paying for the cryptocurrency with their credit cards, according to CNBC.
Bitcoin keeps soaring higher. And people have started to do creative things to get in on the action.
Some have even taken out mortgages to buy Bitcoin, while others are purchasing the cryptocurrency with credit cards, a securities regulator told CNBC on Monday.
"We've seen mortgages being taken out to buy bitcoin. … People do credit cards, equity lines," said Joseph Borg, president of the North American Securities Administrators Association, a voluntary organization devoted to investor protection, and director of the Alabama Securities Commission told CNBC.
"This is not something a guy who's making $100,000 a year, who's got a mortgage and two kids in college ought to be invested in," he added.
Bitcoin's price has exploded over the last two years, and touched a new all-time high on Monday. Its rapid ascent, and the cottage industry that has started to grow around around it, have both galvanized investors' interests and elicited their fair share of criticism.
Earlier this year, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon called it "a fraud" that is "worse than the tulip bulbs," referring the 17th century Dutch tulip-mania bubble.
Still, the cryptocurrency frenzy has started attract the attention of regular Americans, some of whom have been keen to get in on the action, as well.
It's impossible to predict what will happen to Bitcoin tomorrow, let alone next year. It's entirely possible that some people could make a killing on their investments in the cryptocurrency.
But, for the average investor who is also trying to save for retirement and their kids' college educations, taking out a mortgage or going into credit card debt to buy an unregulated cryptocurrency is probably not the most foolproof financial decision.
Check out the full interview at CNBC here »