What you've posted is something I've been thinking about the past few days. Yes, I'm carefully mining/investing, but I realized that Bitcoin -- as a transaction medium -- isn't working. You can't say that it's fulfilling its duty as a digital currency when you have 160,000+ unconfirmed transactions and those that are confirmed aren't done so for 70 - 90 hours.

I do think that (part) of its growth is due to the fact that more and more people want to "separate" their finances from their respective fiat currencies. Bitcoin -- because of its finite supply -- seems to be fitting the bill...at least for now. Still, I wasn't expecting to see Bitcoin $18,000 this soon. I, to, think it's overvalued...at least at present.

I'm not the expert in crytocurrency (yet), but I believe we really need a fork that will improve the usability and speed of Bitcoin transactions. This ongoing mess will only get worse as more money piles in. Or, as time goes on, alternate currencies will eventually rise and take Bitcoin's place.

In the meantime, I think we can both agree that we should invest carefully and take gains for now, but have an exit strategy in place if/when things turn.

I appreciate your thoughtfulness and how you separate emotion from fact. It's rare these days.