Bitcoin Has Already Bounced Back 40% After the Huge Crash

By DAVID Z. MORRIS

Bitcoin’s price has rebounded by over 40% in the last 24 hours, climbing from a low under $11,000 to over $15,300 at this writing. That followed a steep five-day drop of more than 40% from record highs of over $19,600, as measured by Coindesk’s index.

After the crash and rebound, investors who bought Bitcoin as recently as late November have still seen nearly 80% returns. A broad spectrum of other cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum and Litecoin, have seen parallel recoveries.

During the crash, the major exchange Coinbase experienced an outage due to high traffic – possibly an indicator of its huge crop of new investors panic-selling. But such wild swings are nothing new for Bitcoin, and even in the midst of the crash, longtime advocates on Bitcoin forums were celebrating the price drop as a “discount” and urging each other to “buy the dip.”

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That confidence has deep roots. Even in the midst of this year’s massive cryptocurrency run-up, there have been several major corrections. Bitcoin crashed by nearly 40% in September. From Nov. 8 to Nov. 12, the price dropped from $7,459 to $5,857 – nearly 22% – before heading back up to $16,858 by Dec. 7. Then it tanked nearly 12% in two days before working its way back up to a high above $19,300 by December 16th.

Going further back, Bitcoin crashed by 68% in two days back in June of 2011, 36% in one day in January 2012, and 33% over five days in March of 2013. All of those crashes took place at prices under $100, and some of them took months or even years to climb back from – but investors who held on, motivated by faith in Bitcoin’s long-term promise, have been spectacularly rewarded.

There’s no guarantee prior recoveries will repeat themselves, but as of this morning, history is looking like a good teacher.

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