> especially in 2017

"2017" isn't a very exact date. The current price is about 7x what it was on January 1.

(Note: I'm not claiming anything about the future.)

> How much higher can the price possibly get?

A lot. If bitcoin becomes the standard currency for all online and international trade, a single bitcoin could become worth millions of dollars.

But it could also become completely worthless.

Honestly, I'm not sure. Millions USD per BTC? It seems slightly ridiculous to me. Maybe I should find a way to buy shorts instead.

You can short Bitcoin (with respect to USD or other cryptos, but I assume you're interested in shorting BTCUSD) on pretty much all the bigger exchanges. Bitfinex offers it, Kraken too. You'll have to pay a lending fee for the BTC that you short on Bitfinex, which differs depending on the current short-to-long ratio (more people shorting = higher lending fees) and which can get quite high in extreme cases, so long-term shorting on Bitfinex can become an expensive endeavour. Kraken on the other hand has a fixed fee for open short positions, which is quite affordable also in the long term, but they have a limit on the amount of BTC shorts that they allow to exist concurrently on their platform, so it's possible that you can't open any more shorts until someone else closes his positions.

Shorting can be quite lucrative, especially during bear phases. However, you can just as easily burn your fingers - I did quickly earn a nice 4-figure amount shorting ETH (and some BTC) in the middle of the year, during the first bear phase, but I got caught up during the bull phases afterwards, since I expected a pattern more closer to the bursting of the 2013 crypto bubble which was an overall bear, but with bull phases in between. This time it was an overall bull phase with short bear phases in between, and by the time I accepted my fail, I had lost all my nice shorting proceeds (and quite a bit more, but made up for that easily with price appreciations of cold storage cryptos, so I'm at least net positive now).

Shorting is king when the overall pattern is a bearish one, but when it's not clearly bearish, you've been better off longing at good entry points, as cryptos have historically been more likely to grow in price than to shrink. But as always...past market trends are no useful indicator for future trends.

Beware: Many exchanges are especially dodgy, and possibly insolvent. (Bitfinex in particular!) If the market price plummets, the exchange might collapse and you will struggle to get your winnings out...

True, but unfortunately you'll need the services of an exchange if you want to short. Longing is possible by putting cryptos in a wallet you have the private keys for, but not shorting.

As I think about it, this is actually another benefit of longing over shorting - it allows you to eliminate the risk of putting value on exchanges, at least if you're okay with limiting your ability to quickly react to market action.

Care to post any proof? Bitfinex had the opportunity to close shop after being hacked, yet they chose to pay everyone back.

Not the parent, but the way in which Bitfinex paid everyone back was extremely dodgy[0]. They also decided to help themselves to 15% of everyone's BCH after the August 1 fork[1]. I don't understand why anyone would trust them.

[0]https://medium.com/@bitfinexed/bitfinex-never-repaid-their-t...

[1]https://news.bitcoin.com/bitfinex-bitcoin-cash-deposits-with...

It's a neat investment for nerds like me. I put most of my money into ETH but have some (32% initially, 45% now) in BTC, with some 15% in other diverse coins.

It gives a decent ROI.

If you get out first.