Crypto news: Bitcoin guru offers key investment tip amid ‘extremely volatile’ market

But before jumping on the investment bandwagon, Bennington said to seek advice from a financial adviser.

“Cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile in price”, he said.

“They bounce up and down. Talk to a financial adviser. Talk to a professional who understands your financial needs and your financial plans before you get involved in this so you can understand how to do your asset allocation.

“The first step is to learn more. Jump in, listen to some podcasts, find out some information about the way this world works so you can understand it.

“It’s a big idea. It’s a big concept. It’s a big mental pivot. It’s really earlier in internet terms. It’s probably 1998 or 1999 in terms of the adoption of this.

“These currencies are very volatile. They do drop dramatically in price, they can drop dramatically in price and people need to be aware of that.”

Bev Turner questioned Bennington further on the matter, asking whether crypto can be fully relied upon for the long term.

“When I sit down with my financial adviser and they say, ‘let’s just leave it and it will eventually increase’, is that the same with crypto?”, she asked.

“I don’t use the term ‘safe bet’ because it implies that this is some sort of gilt investment”, he said.

“It’s not, it’s very volatile. It’s very much like traditional stocks that can fluctuate in value. The fluctuations have been very dramatic, much more dramatic than we’ve seen in stocks.

“By the way, they’ve also risen much more quickly as well as decline rather quickly.

“The performance of bitcoin, for example, the last 12 months is something like a 125 per cent increase. This is pretty dramatic. If you had $100 invested, now it's $225.

“These are big moves to the upside as well as the potential for big moves to the downside.”