SURVEY: The majority of CoinDesk readers think there's a bubble in cryptocurrencies
Since the beginning of the year, the market cap for digital coins has increased $146 billion, according to data from Coinmarketcap.com, an 811% increase. That growth has been fueled in part by the appreciation of bitcoin, the original digital currency, and initial coin offerings, the red-hot cryptocurrency-based fundraising method.
A survey conducted by CoinDesk found the majority (58%) of the publication's readers believe digital assets are in a bubble. That's striking considering at least 68% of the 1,300 readers surveyed are cryptocurrency investors themselves.
The survey was part of the news company's Q2 "State of the Blockchain Report," which highlighted a number of trends in the crypto space.
CoinDesk's readers are certainly not the only folks who think there's a bubble.
The unbridled march of bitcoin, which is up 381% year-to-date, and initial coin offerings, which this year have raised over $2.1 billion, have folks across Wall Street sounding the alarm.
Jeffrey Kleintop, the chief global investment strategist at Charles Schwab, the $3.1 trillion money manager, said the bitcoin bubble is unlike anything we have ever seen.
Meanwhile, Schwark Satyavolu, a general partner at Trinity Ventures, a venture capital firm, thinks the market for initial coin offerings could be a bubble akin to the mortgage bubble that ushered in the 2008 financial crisis.
"If investments continue at the current rate, this could become the next mortgage crisis with people - including institutional investors - losing hundreds of millions of dollars when (not if) many of these companies go out of business," Satyavolu said in a statement emailed to Business Insider.