Photo/Shetuwang

Nov. 21 (NBD) -- One would report a loss of more than 1 million yuan (143,990.6 U.S. dollars) if he/she bought 20 Bitcoins early this year. 

The world's largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, dropped below 4,100 U.S. dollars at 4:30am of Wednesday, hitting a record low in more than 13 months, according to data from CoinDesk. On Monday, it broke below 5,000 U.S. dollars for the first time since October 2017, a mere five days after it plunged below the 6,000-U.S. dollar mark.

Back in mid-December of last year, Bitcoin skyrocketed to a record high of 19,229 U.S. dollars, trading even at over 20,000 U.S. dollars at some bourses. 

One Internet user said Tuesday night that he invested 100,000 yuan (14,399.1 U.S. dollars) in the bitcoin market when the digital currency reached its all-time high, and now he has lost 98 percent of his investment. 

The "avalanche" in bitcoin price has led to a dive in prices of other cryptocurrencies including Ethereum and Ripple. The total value of the cryptocurrency market has dipped to 150 billion U.S. dollars, a far cry from the level of 850 billion U.S. dollars early this year. 

According to NBD's incomplete statistics, of the 2,479 cryptocurrencies, 1,400 traded at less than 0.1 yuan and 611 at less than 0.01 yuan. 

Technically, Bitcoin is in the midst of a bear market, and due to a lack of favorable news and limited increment in capital inflow, impatient investors chose to head for the exit, crytocurrency analyst Xiao Lei said to quanshangcn, the official WeChat account of news outlet Securities Times, concerning the reasons for the collapse in Bitcoin prices. 

Meanwhile, the development of derivatives for the secondary market like Security Token Offering now gets tons of market attention, which undermines investors' understanding of and confidence in non-credit currencies. Furthermore, Bitcoin Cash hard fork raises safety concerns, and fluctuations in hash rate make Bitcoin owners worry about possible attacks, which accordingly result in a steep sell-off, Xiao added. 

Of the 79 A-share stocks related to blockchain, the underlying technology behind cryptocurrencies, 75 suffered a decline Tuesday due to Bitcoin's steep price fall, seeing a total of 35.1 billion yuan (5.1 billion U.S. dollars) in market cap evaporate.

The long losing streak of Bitcoin has also landed Bitcoin miners in deep water. Many miners were forced to shut down or transfer mining machines. Sold at 20,000 yuan (2,879.8 U.S. dollars) each a year ago, mining machines are now being transferred at more than 1,000 yuan (144.0 U.S. dollars). 

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mike McGlone warned that the slide could get much worse. He predicted the Bitcoin price could fall to 1,500 U.S. dollars, which would indicate another drop of more than 70 percent from current levels.

Chinese Bitcoin advocate Chen Weixing is also changing his attitude toward the cryptocurrency. At the 2018 Block Chain New Economy Hangzhou Summit held on Monday, Chen said the situation in the market is worse than he expected, and the Bitcoin price could see another fall of 50 percent. 

Chinese Bitcoin tycoon Li Xiaolai stated in late September that he would no longer personally invest in blockchain projects. 

As early as 2014, legendary investor Warren Buffett warned investors to stay away from Bitcoin. "It's a mirage basically," Buffett said.  

Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn