but I also think it's likely to lose 50% of its value or more at some point in the next 12 months.
$133 as of now. (Bitcoincharts.com is down, but I think I saw it at around $260 this morning.)
Mt.Gox is giving a high of $266 and a low of $105 right now, so in that sense it's lost ≥50% of its value already. But that's exaggerated by cherrypicking the high & the low, and the exchange rate's hovering around $170 now. We'll have to wait and see whether it returns below $130ish and stays there.
The bitcoins that I had set aside for a Cryonics contest two years ago (and were unredeemed) are suddenly worth a lot more.
Details: I had added 10 bitcoins to get things started, and there were 4.75 worth of additional donations. These were partially lost when the hosted online wallet that I was using (MyBitcoin) was hacked, but 49% was recovered. As of today, after refunding part of the donated money, it is now worth 5.2675. I will be adding from my personal store to bring it up to an even 5.5. At $140 per coin, the new total is $770.
I've decided to follow the buy-and-hold strategy for at least another year, since it worked so well. I don't have exact details on what I'll do with it, but it will not be converted or spent for at least one year, and will eventually be used for promoting cryonics in some way.
Some things I have in mind if it gets big include:
Contributions can be made to:
1Jdn36JUwvJdr3Qiie4aAseFdcoTsND9Qo
(Updated, since the previous address was attached to my personal wallet on an outdated client, which was causing money to be moved out of it by accident. The above is a brainwallet with a reasonably secure passphrase, generated using Blockchain.info.)