Bitcoin after being around $20,000 per Bitcoin in 2017 dropped recently all the way and no one knows when the decline will end. Remember at one point in 2017 it was valued only at $900.

The information below is taken from two articles. They are as follows:

https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-briefly-drops-9000-factors-behind-decline/
https://news.bitcoin.com/cryptocurrency-interest-wanes-online-searches-for-bitcoin-drop-80/?utm_source=OneSignal%20Push&utm_medium=notification&utm_campaign=Push%20Notifications

When I started this blog I wrote that Bitcoin and cryptocurrency was not for the faint of heart and that participating in trading it, mining it, or otherwise seeing it as an investment would be a wild ride. Well, of course I was right. Does that mean that I am going to give up on cryptocurrency? That answer is no. It may affect the way I approach certain management and my dealings with it but I am not going to quit mining at this point or anytime in the near future.

What has triggered this recent decline has to do with several factors which include mainly, but are not limited to the following:

Mt. Gox Trustee Sell-Off
According to the official document released by the Mt. Gox trustee, a total of $404 million worth of bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash have been sold over the past few months, at a price determined by the trustee, which is significantly lower than the current market value of bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. I personally did not know what Mt. Gox was so I did some research and found the following from Wikipedia: Mt. Gox was a bitcoin exchange based in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Launched in July 2010, by 2013 and into 2014 it was handling over 70% of all bitcoin transactions worldwide, as the largest bitcoin intermediary and the world’s leading bitcoin exchange. Unfortunately, Mt. Gox ran into difficulties and declared bankruptcy which forced the sell off the Bitcoin.

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The next thing that has potentially caused a decline is the an annnouncement by the SEC that is as follows:

This week, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that cryptocurrency exchanges that have listed initial coin offerings (ICOs) or tokens on their platforms are required to register with the agency in order to continue providing support for ERC20 tokens.
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Japan’s Cryptocurrency Exchange Penalization
As Tokyo-based technology reporter Yuji Nakamura reported, the Japanese government recently penalized four cryptocurrency exchanges and revoked the licenses of two trading platforms for poor security and failing to meet Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) policies.
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Another recent event that could be affecting cryptocurreny value is simply a declined interest marked by fewer online searches for information about cryptocurrency.

Online Interest in Cryptocurrency Word and Phrase Searches Decline Considerably
According to data from Google Trends and Insights searches for the word “bitcoin” is declining rapidly. The chart dating back to March 2017 is almost identical to the BTC/USD weekly price chart. The same can be said for a variety of popular words that reached peaks at the end of 2017 like the words “ethereum,” “ripple,” and “cryptocurrency.” Google’s data suggest that all of these words including “bitcoin” show searches are down well over 80 percent.

It’s difficult to determine how much of a percentage these factors play in the current decline in the value of Bitcoin or of any cryptocurrency but just like everything positive that raised the value there are going to be times of decline. My advice as always is to hodl.