After several attempts, the digital currency Bitcoin failed to reach its three-year-old record high of 19. 000 US dollars. The oldest and most famous cryptocurrency even collapsed on Thursday. After she got over 19. 000 Dollar climbed, it fell significantly on Thursday to up to 000. 600 U.S. dollar. At the moment, however, there is again an upward trend, the average price according to the platform Coinmarketcap is around 17. 300 US dollars.

Other digital currencies, of which there are thousands, also lost value on Thursday. In some cases, the losses amounted to up to 20 percent of the value, for example with the currency Ripple, which previously more than doubled its rate.

Short correction or end of the price frenzy? What exactly triggered the hard setback remained unclear, as is so often the case. Profit-taking by large investors who bought in at lower prices seem obvious. Falling prices could then also have triggered stop-loss orders, i.e. automatically triggered sales when a certain price level was reached.

Price fluctuations of 1000 US dollars and more are basically not that unusual for Bitcoin – what is more exciting is the question of how sustainable the rapid price increase of the past week really is. Some analysts see the crash as a short correction that does not slow down high demand in the long term.

For critics, however, the price crash is only a confirmation of their skeptical attitude towards cryptocurrencies. You have always argued that the high price fluctuations stand in the way of use as a means of payment and as a solid form of investment. They therefore regard cryptocurrencies as a pure object of speculation. ( With material from dpa ) / (axk)