Warning: This article contains language that may be NSFW.
What goes up—for reasons no one can quite fully understand or articulate—must come down.
Bitcoin dipped below a $300 average price on Sunday for the first time in a full year. The new price woes mark a low point for a currency whose cheerleaders once talked seriously about a $10,000 Bitcoin.
This week’s Bitcoin dip marks the lowest price since the immediate aftermath of the 2013 Silk Road bust. Ever since Ross Ulbricht was arrested as the alleged leader of the Silk Road black market one year ago, the price of Bitcoin has been on a wild ride.
The day of Ulbricht’s arrest, you could buy a Bitcoin for $130. Two months later, the price sat at over $1,200. Now, 12 months later, the currency sits at around $325 and prices are creeping toward pre-Silk Road bust levels.
Graph via BitcoinAverages
Many of those invested have expressed profound frustration.
“Fuck you and everything that walks,” one person wrote as the price fluctuated rapidly over the weekend. “I never win. Hundreds down the shitter. Fuck me and my cock sucking decisions. Fuck Bitcoin.”
Others, however, see the drop in Bitcoin’s price as the perfect time to buy—or at least to get a jolt of adrenaline. “Strap yourselves in,” another user wrote, “we’re in for one hell of a ride.”
The past year has been full of good and bad news for the cryptocurrency. Major companies like Dell, Overstock, and PayPal now accept payments in Bitcoin. Meanwhile, major countries have begun to reign in the cryptocurrency free-for-all: Russia may ban it, for instance, and the U.S. is poised to regulate it.
The single biggest crash in Bitcoin’s history came in Dec. 2013, when China, long a beacon of hope and potential to Bitcoin-enthusiasts, banned financial institutions from trading, insuring, or offering any Bitcoin services. Prices sank from $1,025 to $650 in a single day.
The price bounced dizzyingly over the next month before hitting Bitcoin’s second worst crash: Feb. 2014, where the price fell from $828 to $550, more than halving where the currency had been just 60 days prior. From there, the price finally settled into a slow descent that’s lasted all of 2014. Now, the descent is speeding up.
Bitcoin started Sept. with a $487 pricetag per bitcoin and continues today with a $325 price tag, a more than 35 percent drop in price, making it the worst month since March 2014 and the third worst month in Bitcoin history by many measures.
Despite how many soothsayers have been attracted to Bitcoin, there’s no predicting where Satoshi Nakamoto’s gift will go next.
Image via Zach Copley/flickr | Remix by Max Fleishman (CC BY SA 2.0)
