The price of bitcoin rose 1,221% in 2017. Everyone was talking about the cryptocurrency in December, and will continue to talk about it into 2018, even though the frenzy and general conversation has expanded to cryptocurrencies like litecoin, ether, ripple and beyond.

But as the general public takes a much larger interest in bitcoin, a number of popular misconceptions still linger. You see people shouting these things on Twitter, or hear friends or colleagues saying them, or even sometimes read them in an incorrect news article.

Here are three of the most common misconceptions about bitcoin.

1. It’s unregulated

People say bitcoin is unregulated, usually in order to make the argument that it’s dangerous and unstable. But bitcoin is, in fact, regulated in a number of ways.

Bitcoin brokerages that are above-board are all licensed in some manner: Coinbase registered as a “money services business” with FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, while Gemini registered as a “trust” with NYDFS, the New York Department of Financial Services. Both forms of license mean complying with KYC (know your customer) and AML (anti-money laundering) requirements.

In 2015, NYDFS introduced the “BitLicense,” a set of regulations governing any digital currency companies based in New York that hold customer funds. Some companies applied for the license, while others shut down their operations in New York to avoid doing so.

All the exchanges offering bitcoin futures trading have had to get approval from the CFTC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. CME, Cboe, and Cantor Fitzgerald all got CFTC approval in 2017 for their bitcoin futures. LedgerX, which offers bitcoin options (but not futures) also got CFTC approval.

And then there are a number of government bodies that have issued guidance, if not official rules, on bitcoin and cryptocurrency trading. In 2014, the IRS issued its first guidance on bitcoin and taxes. It decided to treat bitcoin as property, which means that income from bitcoin would be treated as capital gains, like with stocks.

More recently, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton issued a statement in December 2017 warning the public about the risk of investing in ICOs (initial coin offerings). In an ICO, Clayton said, “There is substantially less investor protection than in our traditional securities markets, with correspondingly greater opportunities for fraud and manipulation.” Many have taken the SEC’s warnings to be the obvious first step toward eventual stricter policy on crypto.

In other words: bitcoin trading platforms are already somewhat regulated in a number of ways, and more regulation is likely coming.

View photos SEC Chairman Jay Clayton testifies before the Senate Banking Committee on Sept. 26, 2017. (AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) More

2. It’s anonymous

It’s not fully anonymous, no. When people say bitcoin is anonymous, they usually mean that they think it’s not traceable—but it is. (In fact, criminals are now moving away from using bitcoin and toward monero, which is more anonymized.)

When you buy or sell bitcoin, or send it from one place to another, your transaction goes on the public bitcoin blockchain, where anyone can see it. You are identified by your public key, a string of letters and numbers, and while that doesn’t show your name, the same key will appear for every transaction from the same bitcoin wallet address—so if someone were to identify which bitcoin wallet address is yours (either by hacking your exchange account, or obtaining your cellphone, or finding your keys if you don’t store them safely), they could easily see all the bitcoin transactions that were yours.

This makes bitcoin semi-anonymous at best, or “pseudonymous.” In addition, every block mined on the bitcoin blockchain identifies the mining pool that verified it.