Bitcoin on Wednesday blew past the $11,000 mark just one day after it took out $10,000. Next stop, $12,000? Maybe. Or, if one Nobel Prize-winning economist has it right, perhaps the whole thing will collapse at the hands of the law.

“ ‘Bitcoin is successful only because of its potential for circumvention, lack of oversight. So it seems to me it ought to be outlawed. It doesn’t serve any socially useful function.’ ” — Joseph Stiglitz

One function it has served in a big way is delivering massive profits to its investors. Bitcoin BTCUSD, +0.23% has exploded for a 12-fold gain so far this year, flying in the face of all the critics, like Joseph Stiglitz, who have consistently called for the rally to come crashing down.