MATT WORDSWORTH, ABC PRESENTER: Investors in the online currency bitcoin have been laughing all the way to the bank in recent weeks. The coins worth $1,000 each have skyrocketed in value, now fetching just shy of $20,000. This week two major Wall Street exchanges opened trading on the coins, adding legitimacy to what's been something of an experiment. But as Andy Parker reports, there are fears the bitcoin bubble will burst. Leaving many investors in the lurch.

ANDY PARK, ABC REPORTER: If you thought bitcoin was an abstract technology or a niche investment, there's an awful lot of punters clamouring to be involved.

JASON WILLIAMS, FOUNDER, BITPOS: Bitcoin is a bit of suffering from the Kardashian syndrome. Bitcoin's famous for being famous. People want it because other people want it.

ANDY PARK: Not long ago Jason Williams meet-ups for bitcoin enthusiasts, sometimes failed to even draw a crowd.

JASON WILLIAMS: We are absolutely seeing the start of mainstream adoption.

ANDY PARK: Now bitcoin is a magnet for an unlikely breed of investor.

I guess for you it's the way to make money.

CLARISSA MOSLEY, BITCOIN INVESTOR: Don't even know how to update my laptop properly. I'm in the human services, so math is something I sort of failed at. I'm actually really bad with numbers. Yeah.

ANDY PARK: Are you typical or atypical here tonight as bitcoin investor?

CLARISSA MOSLEY: I am very atypical. One, I'm a woman. I think my ages as well, you know, I'm a mother and sort of at the other end of the spectrum. I'm not a young millennial tech person or anything.

ANDY PARK: The online currency is free from the control of any central bank and it's no secret its value has gone through the roof. If you bought just one bitcoin this time last year you would have paid $982. And if you had held on throughout the year despite three major crashes and sold last week when it crossed the $18,000 mark, you would have made a tidy profit. If you can handle the risk. Risk that used to be in bitcoin's early days associated with cybercrime.

"Bitcoin is the first decentralised digital currency."

BRAD BROWN, AUSTRAC: The new legislation that AUSTRAC will provide responds to their increasing prevalence and use within the society and within the community. It also responds importantly for Australia in relation to the risks that are faced by money laundering and terrorism financing.

ANDY PARK: And now it's been embraced by Wall Street with bitcoin futures trading opening with the Chicago options exchange.

ED TILLY, CEO, CBOE OPTIONS EXCHANGE: Moving this on to a regulated market, full transparency, oversight from our own internal regulation, that's what we're bringing to the marketplace and it is answering that demand that we've seen from our customers.

PROF. JASON POTTS, RMIT ECONOMIST: Futures trading is a way to basically lock in a contract and enable someone else to take the risk of price volatility. And then makes it safe for institutional investors. What we can expect to see is reasonably large amounts, possibly a flood of institutional money into this crypto market.

ANDY PARK: A flood so dramatic trading was twice halted to stabilise the price from huge upward surges.

(VOICEOVER)

Bitcoin futures jumped over 20 per cent before easing back. The search may have caused an early outage of the Chicago based, CBOE Global Markets website.

TYLER WINKLEVOSS, FOUNDER, GEMINI: Bitcoin is basically...

ANDY PARK: Two brothers banking the bubble won't burst are the Winklevoss twins.

TYLER WINKLEVOSS: You can send it anywhere around the world as long as someone has a data connection...

ANDY PARK: They pumped $US11 million from their settlement with Mark Zuckerberg into bitcoin, making them the first bitcoin billionaires.

CAMERON WINKLEVOSS, FOUNDER GEMINI: Bitcoin has a fixed supply of $US21 million bitcoin. Similar to why you might buy gold and have that in your portfolio as a hedge against currency risk, or inflation, or disaster insurance.

ANDY PARK: It's their exchange which is supporting bitcoin's Wall Street debut.

ASHER TAN, COINJAR: Morning everybody.

ANDY PARK: Closer to home, others are enjoying bitcoin's growth.

ASHER TAN: We've seen phenomenal growth over the last 12 months. Most bitcoin exchanges track quite closely to the bitcoin price. In terms of trading volumes, we've seen a 10-fold increase over the last 12 months and we've more than doubled our user numbers.

ANDY PARK: He runs Coinjar, an Aussie start-up which focuses on getting consumers into owning and trading in the currency.

ASHER TAN: I think the basic concepts of bitcoin have different aspects. There's the economic side, technology side and there's the social side as well, how we use currencies between each other. So lots of education. Coinjar aims to demystify it. The best way is to own a small amount of bitcoin, and use it for yourself, and that usually answers most of the questions people have around bitcoin.

JASON POTTS: A lot of the attention has been on bitcoin the crypto currency but it's actually a sideshow for the real thing that happened was we got a significant proof of concept of a radical new technology that is about to transform a lot of the ways in which we use data and information in our society.

JAMES DIMON, JPMORGAN CHASE: You all can do whatever you want and I don't care.

ANDY PARK: Predictions the bubble will burst remain. The CEO of JPMorgan Chase bank, calls it a fraud.

JAMES DIMON: I could care less what bitcoin trades for, why it trades, how it trades, who trades it. If you are stupid enough to buy it you'll pay the price for it one day. The only value of bitcoin is what the other guy will pay for it. I think there's a good chance that the bitcoin - a lot of the buyers are out there jazzing it up every day so maybe you'll buy it too.

JASON POTTS: I don't see this as a bubble. What I see this is a price discovery process that's playing out with a fundamentally new technology. There will be gyrations and volatility in the process. What we're observing here is an adoption process, whereas more and more people come in and it drives the price higher.

CLARISSA MOSLEY: Can I get a beer and a vodka soda fresh lime, thanks?

ANDY PARK: For now paying with bitcoin in the real world economy remains a novelty. Is this the first time you've bought a drink with bitcoin?

CLARISSA MOSLEY: No.

ANDY PARK: What else can you buy with bitcoin?

CLARISSA MOSLEY: I'd like to be able to buy a lot more. Can I pay with bitcoin? Thanks.

ANDY PARK: Even its legion of new fans can't agree on what bitcoin will do next.

JASON WILLIAMS: Be really careful with what you want to do with bitcoin, or other crypto-currencies.

CLARISSA MOSLEY: It will pop, deflate, but the bubble, it won't burst.