Bitcoin Price Dropping, Again

The Bitcoin price dropped again, now just at above $570 in what could be part of another extended bear run. 

It’s a far cry from just a two months ago, which saw cheers of “to the moon!” as the bitcoin price reached $772 on June 16. It crashed to  $593 on June 22 before recovering back to $707 by July 2, and has been  mostly in decline since. It should be noted that the price is still higher than August 2, when  it suddenly crashed to $535 upon news of the Bitfinex hack. The rebound  from that low has been weak, succumbing once again to gravity. You can always stay up to date on the latest Bitcoin price movements with Bitcoin.com’s price charts. 

What’s Happening to the Bitcoin Price?

One glaringly obvious reason for the drama is the hack on one of Bitcoin’s most popular exchanges, Bitfinex. The $70 million theft is the largest in the Bitcoin world since Mt Gox, which caused price chaos on a grander scale in 2014. Such a news event hauls Bitcoin back into the mainstream media  spotlight and, given the media’s tendency to report mainly negative  news, reinforces the unfortunate public notion that Bitcoin is a wild  west at best, and unstable at worst. Bitfinex’s response to the crisis has come under fire from many within the community too, socializing losses of  around 36 percent across all accounts and offering a form of IOU to its  customers who wonder whether any company could recover from such a  disaster. Some also protested that their non-bitcoin account values had been tapped to even out losses. 

Sucking up the Oxygen (and Money)

Another factor in bitcoin’s broader price decline could be the amount of news coming from the world of altcoins as  of late. Once a fringe sideshow that most outside the cryptocurrency  world didn’t even know existed, altcoins have seen their own share of  drama and price surges that may be sucking the oxygen (and money) out of  bitcoin. The Ethereum/DAO/hard-fork/Classic  saga may be getting old now, but the prices of both rival currencies  have seesawed without either crashing to the floor. ETH has held at  around $11 while ETC is knocking at the $2 door once again. Even more has happened this past week. Privacy-focused currency DASH  has soared to over $15 from around $9 at the start of August, while  distributed computing-based MaidSafeCoin this week saw another surge  that surpassed its last rally in March, pushing $0.15 (about double its  value from the start of the month). The much-hyped Steem currency of social media economy Steemit.com pushed into the Top 10 on Coincap.io but has declined since its initial July surge, and is probably not taking any money out of Bitcoin this week. 

The Bitcoin Now Has to Compete

The bottom line is that altcoins can no longer be considered copycats  or reinventions of the same cryptocurrency wheel. Many of them  represent compelling use cases beyond just payments and – whether  long-term feasible or not – are dead serious about chasing investment  capital. Bitcoin can no longer take for granted that its first-mover advantage  will keep most money and attention flowing towards it.