It is a picture that Bitcoin investors should have gotten used to by now: Extreme price increases are often followed by a sharp slump. On Monday, the cryptocurrency fell to 30. 260 US dollars after it ended reached a record high of almost 42. 000 dollars last week. Together with the development over the weekend, the price collapsed by more than twenty percent at times. On Monday, a Bitcoin on the Bitstamp trading platform cost around 33. 000 dollars . On Tuesday morning the price had recovered somewhat and was just under 36. 000 Dollars.

Unpredictable digital currencies “The attack of weakness again illustrates the high volatility of the cryptocurrency,” commented Bitcoin expert Timo Emden from Emden Research. As a result, the total market volume of all currently around 8225 digital currencies fell back below the one trillion dollar mark. Last week, the mark was exceeded for the first time after other digital currencies such as Ethereum had also gained in recent weeks.

A constant point of criticism is the sometimes violent exchange rate fluctuations . It is criticized that this fickleness disqualifies digital currencies for investment and especially for payment purposes. In addition, there is the accusation that internet currencies could be misused for criminal purposes due to their high anonymity.

(olb)