The massive surge in bitcoin prices in 2017 saw investors from all over the world take a sudden interest in the cryptocurrency market.
Bitcoin prices crossed the $19,000 market in December 2017 and investors were fighting to get their hands on the cryptocurrency which many analysts predicted would keep increasing in 2018.
Bitcoin Suffers Heavy Losses In First Quarter
Things completely turned around for bitcoin and its millions of investors in 2018. The upswing in value suddenly turned into a downward spiral and the value of bitcoin has continued to plummet in the first quarter of 2018.
At the time of this writing, the value of bitcoin currently stands at $6,872 and analysts now predict that bitcoin will continue to decline in the coming months. There have been a number of reasons why bitcoin’s value has dropped and why investors have taken a massive hit.
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Facebook, Google And Twitter Ban Bitcoin
Financial regulators from around the world have cracked down on the cryptocurrency industry during the first quarter of this year and an emphasis has been placed on bitcoin. There have been many scams in the cryptocurrency industry and because there are a lack of regulations on bitcoin, financial regulators have issued numerous warnings to their citizens warning them of the risk and dangers of dealing with bitcoin.
This negative publicity and the crackdown by financial regulators have been a key reason for bitcoin’s value plummeting. Tech giants such as Facebook, Twitter and Google have also taken action against bitcoin and banned any bitcoin advertising on their respective platforms.
Facebook issued its ban on bitcoin ads in Jan 2018 and bitcoin prices dropped by as much as 12 percent. With Google and Twitter following suit, investors are now having second thoughts on bitcoin and the negative outlook is continuing to grow.
Reddit which has been one of the top hubs for bitcoin users has also announced that it will no longer be supporting bitcoin. The social media site had earlier accepted bitcoin payments for its Reddit Gold program.
In a statement, a representative for Reddit said
The upcoming Coinbase change, combined with some bugs around the Bitcoin payment option that were affecting purchases for certain users, led us to remove Bitcoin as a payment option.
Bitcoin supporters however continue to remain confident that the cryptocurrency will soon recover and once again provide investors with something to cheer about.
