All speculative bubbles come to an end. Whether the speculative bubble in bitcoin has burst for good, though, remains to be seen. Last week's price action is flashing warning signals that a short-term—or even the final—top has been made in what is supposed to be in the next "asset" class.

Since so much media attention has been paid to the cryptocurrency craze, Benzinga decided to devote an entire PreMarket Prep broadcast to the topic. On the Dec. 19 show, the team assembled bitcoin bulls and bears and let them battle out in an open forum.

Bulls...

At the top of broadcast, long-time bulls Jeff Goldman and Michael Graub discussed crypto mining and the fundamentals of the currency and reasons for its astounding run. Both investors have a cost-basis much lower than bitcoin's price of $13,000 at time of this writing.

Graub went as far to say that "bitcoin is another asset class called digital assets, like precious metals, stocks, real estate or bonds." Goldman approaches the instrument as trading vehicle that offers volatility extraordinaire, which every trader wants, as opposed to the low-volatility stock trading environment.

Related: The Bitcoin Regulation Conundrum, Explained

...Bears

Next came the bears. Joe Saluzzi of Themis Trading and Jim Angel, associate professor at Georgetown University shared their extremely bearish views. Saluzzi attacked the issue from a fundamental standpoint (how can one trade bitcoin if you can't even fairly value it?) and expressed his concerns regarding the "difficulties in regulation" surrounding cryptocurrencies. The bears simply stated BTC's lack of regulation will lead to its downfall.

Angel called bitcoin a "cyber-libertarian pipedream" and reiterated he believes its lack of regulation will lead to its unraveling.

Kris Nelson, COO of Social Reality Inc. (NASDAQ: SRAX), countered these arguments by noting the lack of regulation should be construed as a positive. Nelson stated that for market enthusiasts who believe markets should be the determining governance, "Crypto is the best place to be, because it is truly controlled by the market itself."

The GBTC

On the back-end of the broadcast, Michael Sonnenshein, Grayscale's director of business development, who is behind the Bitcoin Investment Trust (OTC: GBTC), fought back for the bulls. According to Sonnenshein, the BIT product was created at the urging of "accredited" investors that crave long-term bullish exposure to the currency.

He was joined by one of bitcoin's harshest critics, Peter Schiff, CEO and chief global strategist at Euro Pacific Capital, who called the rally "fraudulent," and comparable to the Beanie Babies craze in the early 1990's. He went to call bitcoin, "the biggest bubble that I have ever seen."