Cryptocurrency price plunge worse than bursting of dotcom bubble

Cryptocurrency prices that reached dizzying heights in late 2017 and into 2018 have plunged back to earth this year, bolstering the arguments of skeptics that the scorching hot market for digital money was an economic bubble due to burst.

According to Bloomberg News, the MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index has fallen 80 percent from its January high — worse than the Nasdaq Composite index’s 78 percent peak-to-trough plunge following the dotcom-stock bust in 2000.  

Bitcoin, the most widely used cryptocurrency, started the year priced above $17,000. It recently changed hands on $6,261, a drop of more than 260 percent, according to CoinDesk. Rival cryptocurrency ethereum recently traded at $173.25, down nearly 90 percent from its January high of $1,414.90. The total value of the top 100 cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, once nearly a trillion dollars, was pegged most recently at $188.5 billion, near its all-time low of $187 billion.

To be sure, fans of…