Why have cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum fallen so much? — Quartz

The price charts resemble battlefields, with red arrows raining down relentlessly. Since the start of the year, the price of bitcoin has fallen by more than 50%, cutting more than $100 billion from its market capitalization. At the time of writing, Satoshi’s digital gold trades for around $6,400 per coin, a far cry from the $100,000 that some analysts predicted at the beginning of the year.

And it’s not just bitcoin.

For instance, since recording an all-time high of more than $1,400 in January 2018, ether has similarly plunged. In the past month alone, ether has shed nearly $11 billion in market cap (that’s equivalent to 55,000 Lamborghini Huracáns). Ripple’s XRP, which once hovered near $4 per unit, has also succumbed to gravity, crashing some 90% from its January peak.

All things considered, it has been a bloodbath.

It’s hard to pinpoint a single reason for the declines, and some coins are already bouncing back from the depths plunged earlier this week. Here are a few of…