We saw a dramatic rise and fall in bitcoin suddenly it went up to approx $20000 then it went to around $9000 and all within a span of 10 to 20 days.
- The drop in bitcoin is a result of the massive new inflows of retail investors who are relatively 'weak hands' and more prone to sell at the sight of falling prices than the capital that has been in the system for a while that has a longer term outlook.
- Trading on Coinbase was disabled for more than two hours in the middle of the day. The company had more than 13 million users at the end of November.
At its lows, bitcoin had fallen 47 percent in just five days and lost about $9,400. The digital currency erased more than $1,000 in one hour alone Friday morning.
- The sharp drop in the cryptocurrency prices came as demand from South Korean and Japanese investors fell. The two countries had dominated trading volume for major cryptocurrencies in the last several months.
On Tuesday, the owner of the South Korean Youbit digital currency exchange filed for bankruptcy after a hack resulted in the loss of 17 percent of its assets
