The CFPB names more specific risks that consumers should be prepared for, including volatile exchange rates, potential high fees on exchange platforms, and fraud risk. If your funds are lost or stolen, they can be especially difficult to recover, thanks to the decentralized nature of blockchain and lack of any governmental oversight.
Reported Volume calculates volume from all exchanges with market pairs, but due to factors such as wash trading, it is considered an unreliable metric.

For the sake of clarity an explicit definition of short, medium, and long term is required. In this work short term refers to the 2–4 and 4–8 day period bands. Medium term refers to the 8–16 and 16–32 day bands. Long term will be used to refer to the 32–64, 64–128, 128–256 and 256–512 day bands. The short, medium, and long term bands will be considered separately to begin with, and then considered collectively alongside the results of the GSADF bubble test.
The difference between a digital currency and a cryptocurrency is that the latter is decentralised, meaning it is not issued or backed by a central authority such as a central bank or government. Instead, cryptocurrencies run across a network of computers. Digital currencies have all the characteristics of traditional currencies but exist only in the digital world. They are issued by a central authority.