Recently we almost saw cryptocurrency’s Black Wednesday. In the space of a few hours, Bitcoin’s price fell by up to 30%, from about $43,000 to around $31,000, before rebounding. As of now, it’s far from its all-time high of more than $63,000, reached just last month, and has lost about 27% of its value in the last week. The rest of the top cryptocurrencies are a sea of red; at one point, about 20% of the entire market’s value had been wiped out, according to CoinMarketCap. Crypto-connected stocks like Tesla and MicroStrategy declined. The exchanges Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini all had technical issues that hindered trading. Equal measures of fear and resolve spread through Twitter and other social media, as true believers separated themselves from panic sellers. No matter how you parse it, now is a rough time to be a cryptocurrency investor. After reaching its epic April high, Bitcoin’s price has been sliding for a month, losing about 27% of its value in the last week. While Bitcoin partisans claim that they are holding for the long term and these are merely momentary blips, Bitcoin’s recent profound volatility signals the essential vulnerabilities of cryptocurrencies: namely, they are unstable assets built on speculation and market manipulation—including ad hoc social media campaigns designed to keep skittish investors from engaging in a mass selloff that would further tank prices. Requiring constant public urging from prominent influencers to keep retail investors engaged, cryptocurrencies may never be ready for the kind of widespread adoption their fans believe is inevitable. Some portfolios will survive, some won’t. Promoters of so-called altcoins may have little rhetorical ballast to support their positions—many traders would admit that they’re looking for quick gains, not investing for the long term, and that now they’re reaping the consequences of their decisions. But the same can’t be said of Bitcoin fanatics, who despite facing enormous losses over recent weeks, with volatility to match, have taken to expressing overwhelming confidence in their positions.

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