Over the past year, the price of a Bitcoin has skyrocketed from less than $800 to nearly $20,000 — a meteoric rise that financial insiders say is no different than the escalating cost of a tulip in seventeenth-century Amsterdam.

Kang first got the Bitcoin bug in July, initially investing $4000, upping it to $9000, then fearing a crash, betting his entire crypto-cache on a random soccer game (which he lost). A former aspiring professional poker player, Kang bounced back undeterred, and with the surging price of the currency, Bitcoin mania has taken over his life.