As we’ve mentioned previously, Bitcoin suddenly became very appealing recently to Spaniards convinced they were next on the European Union’s financial chopping block. That was enough to drive the cryptocurrency up to triple figures. Anybody who pays attention to macroeconomics, or just the overall volatility of bitcoins, can guess what happened next.
Namely, after riding a huge wave to an enormous crest, where just two months ago a bitcoin was worth $15 to $20 and shot up to heights of $260… what goes up must come down:
After soaring past $250 earlier, it’s tumbled all the way down to current levels around $150.
Bitcoin is now 44 percent off its intraday high of $266.
To be fair, Bitcoin seems to have stabilized for now, at about $170, which means anybody holding them back in January made about eight to ten times their initial investment. Of course, it also means that most of the people driving up the value of bitcoins in the first place are completely screwed, but that’s life in the financial Wild West.
Meanwhile, people who got on the ground floor of this particular idea have decided to start trolling:
[Redditor] Bitcoinbillionaire began using Reddit’s Bitcoin tip function, which allows users to send Bitcoins to random Reddit users, to give out thousands of dollars in the cryptocurrency. All in all, Bitcoinbillionaire gave away $13,600 to Reddit strangers, including $5,000 to a lucky user named Karelb, who already used a portion of the money to buy a new cell phone.
Because that won’t make the market even more volatile than it already is, or anything.
Like we said in our last Bitcoin post, there’s nothing wrong with buying and using bitcoins. Just… don’t get too heavily into them. This isn’t going to be the last time the value of bitcoins whipsaws.