Is now the time for individual investors to put some money in bitcoin?

It’s a question that financial advisers increasingly hear these days. With bitcoin up more than fourfold this year and a series of high-profile “initial coin offerings” raising more than $2 billion in total, according to CoinDesk’s ICO Tracker, the number of investors interested in digital currencies has been picking up, wealth-management professionals say. Earlier this week, bitcoin was trading at more than $4,880.40 after ending 2016 at around $968, according to CoinDesk.

Yet advisers for the most part don’t recommend investing in digital currency or in the few investments vehicles that have cropped up. There are a number of market and regulatory risks inherent in trading cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin and similar digital currencies may offer investment opportunity in the future, advisers say, but for now they remain speculative bets that investors should be wary of or avoid altogether.

“While the potential upside is alluring, the significant risk of loss is incompatible with prudent investing for long-term goals like college savings, buying a home or retirement,” says Julie Ford, founder of Ford Financial Solutions in New York.

Ms. Ford says she had a 45-year-old client recently come to her with a plan to liquidate a majority of her retirement savings and invest the proceeds, after taxes and penalties, in bitcoin.