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Bitcoin boosters make case on social media after crypto crash

Dropping 20 percent this week alone, the digital currency’s vociferous backers are saying a big rebound is up ahead.

A board with the logo of Bitcoin is on display in Yerevan
Bitcoin has swung wildly up and down, but its most fervent investors appear confident in prospects for the future [Anton Vaganov/Reuters]
By Vildana Hajric and Molly SmithBloomberg
Published On 27 Sep 2019

As Bitcoin prices took a plunge this week, crypto evangelists were quick to take to Twitter to soothe frayed nerves and expound on why the drop is nothing to be concerned about.

The swiftness of the declines took many by surprise and dozens of tweets were quickly dispatched in support of the nascent and highly volatile market. There’s no reason to panic, they said. Buy now and see it go to $50,000, they said. The worst thing you can do is miss the next wave, they said.

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But this week’s price swings were not for the faint of heart. The average daily change for Bitcoin over the past week is more than 4.4%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That compares with a move of about 0.7% for gold in the same period – an asset class Bitcoin is frequently compared with because they’re both seen as a store of value.

“Bitcoin was seemingly on the path to redemption this year,” Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, wrote in a note this week. But this week’s drop is a “big” one, “even for that asset,” he said.

A string of issues and a lack of catalysts to drive prices higher this week weighed on the crypto market. Bitcoin dropped below $8,000 for the first time since June and is on pace to post its worst week since November 2018, with a weekly decline of about 20%.

That’s wiped out about $40 billion off its market capitalization, according to data from Coinmarketcap.com. And peer coins, including Ether and XRP, also sold off.

As is often the case in the cryptosphere, ascertaining good reasons for the drop in prices is difficult and investors and skeptics alike struggled to explain the moves.

Some cited a lukewarm reception to the first physically deliverable Bitcoin futures contracts, while others pointed to yet another disappointment on the Bitcoin ETF front.

Yet the crypto universe has some of the most steadfast and ardent of investors and believers. So steadfast, in fact, that a new term had to be invented to explain their devotion. And whatever the cause for this week’s drop, there was no dearth of reasons to keep Holding On For Dear Life.

Here’s a sampling of what some other market-watchers and crypto investors were saying on Twitter:


https://twitter.com/CryptoWelson/status/1176879328778477576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

– With assistance from Kenneth Sexton.

Source: Bloomberg