Personally I dont like digital currencies. Cryptocurrency first of all is not tied to any valued asset and is totally decentralized. In addition to there being no standard yet and WILD speculation on which one will win it's simply too volatile and risky.

The entire idea around it is really shady too not unlike what Ben mentioned above. Cryptominers basically buy up all these massive computing clusters so they can add new blockchain nodes, effectively "printing" new currency.

This situation is ripe for meddling with currency valuation. In fact, the massive speculation among investors, and the miners who are manipulating the market, is doing exactly that.

Many of you may not know it but due to the pandemic (which already caused supply issues worldwide) as well as all the speculative miners out there, meaning those who buy up massive loads of compute clusters, typically in the form of 20-30+teraflop video cards, have utterly destroyed the PC gaming market and custom/hobbyist PC builder market. Seriously. It has ruined that industry and the scalpers are holding what inventory is available hostage on eBay and other places for 3-5 times the MSRP. All b/c of ridiculous and absurd speculation over digital currencies and hoping they can "mine their way to a fortune".

You see, it's not just the speculation of investors. Let's use an analogy to drive this idea home. Let's compare it to the traditional stock market. We all know the market is also highly speculative. Right?

However, imagine if you could also influence the stock market itself by essentially "printing" up your own stocks purchases.

That is exactly what crypto miners are doing. They are in essence "printing money" by using compute power. However, the printing is very difficult and takes lots of time and tons of complicated mathematical operations to add new currency nodes. It's not only speculation on the investing side. There is the actual "mining" speculation as well (the computing new currency/blockchains).

I'm extremely dubious of cryptocurrencies as our monetary or economic future. Compute power has no upper bound. And furthermore b/c the "mining" is a mathematical process and not a physical process of work to find a jewel or something of value (for example), or to create something of true value, it leaves me with serious concerns. One could even [eventually] foresee (it's within the realm of possibility) a way to hack the market or manipulate, or "mine", it with fake currency.

If you want to invest in it now I'd keep it very minimal. I'm not sold that cryptocurrency is here to stay (not in this form anyway). Beyond that there is the issue of which technology will win if it in fact does stick around. Just be careful. This is a highly volatile market and technology.