4 Times Crypto has “Died”

Amidst red numbers and regressing markets, let’s remember moments when crypto was proclaimed dead, yet still bounced back.

Many has proclaimed Crypto as dead or worthless numerous times. Bitcoin alone has been declared dead more than 400 times! Yet, we are still here, and it is very probable that we are here to stay, because blockchain, and consequently cryptocurrencies, prove themselves again and again as a revolutionary technology bringing countless benefits to many industries.

Because crypto markets have been having a rough couple of months lately, I’ve decided to write about several instances when crypto has — according to news headlines — died, but in reality, continued unfazed in its growth and adoption, proving the sceptics wrong:

Mt. Gox

The oldest and one of the most dramatic deaths of Bitcoin happened in 2011, when Mt. Gox — the most popular crypto exchange at the time — reported a hack and 25 000 stolen BTC from its platform. This caused the price of Bitcoin to crash by 93%, from 29 USD to just 2.

This event represented a huge blow not only to the price of Bitcoin, but also to its reputation. However, the cryptocurrency managed to fully recover by 2012.

Yet, this isn’t the end of Mt. Gox story.

By April 2013, Mt. Gox was handling around 70% of all crypto transaction of that time. However, with increasing popularity and usage of cryptocurrencies, the platform began having problems handling this large volume and throughput, which finally resulted in several days of halted operations and crash of Bitcoin’s price by 52%. Combined with ensuing DDoS hacker attack and Mt. Gox’s website being down, the total fall in the price of BTC was -83%.

And finally, a sad epilogue to Mt. Gox: For several years, Mt. Gox was world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, but on February 7th, 2014, it disabled all BTC withdrawals with no clear answer as to why. During the month, rest of the trading operations was suspended and by the end of February, the platform itself went completely offline.

As was revealed later, this happened because once again, Mt. Gox was hacked and 744 408 BTC was stolen from its users’ accounts (which was around $473 million at the time, more than $26 billion today). The company signed bankruptcy shortly after. The year 2014 ended with Bitcoin’s price 67% down.

2017 Bubble

We all know what happened at the end of 2017. The hype around crypto became incredible and the price of BTC skyrocketed to almost $20 000. We also know, what happened right after that: the bubble popped.

When price action is driven almost completely by speculation, unnaturally high demand created artificially through media, and masses are jumping on only because of FOMO (fear of missing out), the consequences are severe.

After 2017 ATH, Bitcoin’s price eventually dropped by 84% (to around $3200) and it took 3 years until the mark of $20k was conquered again.

Warren Buffett

Speaking of 2017 bubble, one of the people who called it out, right before it popped, was the famous investor and billionaire Warren Buffett.

2017 however wasn’t the only instance Warren spoke against Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. In 2014 for example, he called BTC a mirage.

Some of his popular quotes about cryptocurrencies, gathered throughout the years, are: “Cryptocurrencies basically have no value and they don’t produce anything.”, “Probably rat poison squared.”, “I don’t have any Bitcoin. I don’t own any cryptocurrency, I never will.” or “In terms of cryptocurrencies generally, I can say almost with certainty that they will come to a bad ending.”

However, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general have kept proving Buffett wrong again and again and now, as we informed you in our last week’s Crypto News, even this long-term cryptocurrency sceptic may be changing his mind about Bitcoin.

“The Long-term Bitcoin Price will be Zero”

This is one of the latest additions to so-called Bitcoin Obituaries, whose author is, in this case, American stockbroker Peter Schiff. He posted this comment on his Twitter, following a $4000 drop in Bitcoin’s price in January 2022.

I chose this comment as a demonstration that even after BTC has proven itself so many times, lived through -90% crashes and cryptocurrencies, DeFi and blockchain-focused companies have kept evolving and growing, there will always be haters. It’s important to listen to constructive criticism, but equally as important is to recognize which comments/opinions are constructive and which ones simply aren’t.