The price of Bitcoin has collapsed from nearly $20,000 a coin six months ago to just $6,800 in a spectacular fall from grace with investors.
A chart plotting Bitcoin’s value against the US dollar makes miserable reading for investors hoping to make a quick buck of the digital currency on the back of last year’s massive rise.
Following Bitcoin is a rollercoaster ride. For months in 2017, the price slowly climbed from $2,657 in June to $5,000 in October – then a steep rise was triggered taking the value to $19,345 in December.
Since then, investors have seen more troughs than peaks as the price plunged to a low of $6,634 in April and down to the current price of $6,740 after recovering to $9,699 for a short time in May.
In the past seven days, the Bitcoin market cap has plunged by $16.45 billion from $131.65 to $115.20.
As the oldest, most expensive and most traded cryptocurrency, what happens to Bitcoin shapes the market for other digital currencies that have followed a similar value trajectory in recent months.
Future or failure?
“With the largest variety of markets and the biggest value – having reached a peak of US$18 billion – Bitcoin is here to stay,” says market monitor Cryptocompare.com
“As with any invention, there can be improvements or flaws in the initial model however the community and a team of dedicated developers are pushing to overcome any obstacle they come across. It is also the most traded cryptocurrency and one of the main entry points for all the other cryptocurrencies.
“The price is as unstable as always and it can go up or down by 10% – 20% in a single day.”
Bitcoin has hordes of promoters and detractors with opposing views on the destiny of Bitcoin.
Some, like Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, see Bitcoin as the future, taking over from traditional money as a global currency.
Others, like billionaire investment guru Warren Buffett vilify Bitcoin as the devil’s spawn and see no value in the digital currency – just a gamble or speculative investment in the hope the price will rise to give a profit.
Bitcoin value US$ – December 2017 to June 2018
Source: CryptoCompare