Bitcoin down 50% this year

Bitcoin tumbled to its lowest level since February as the meltdown in the world’s largest digital currency accelerated, renewing concern about the long-term viability of the much-hyped alternative to traditional currencies.

The price of the digital coin fell nearly 5 percent Tuesday to $6,544, bringing the slide for the year to more than 50 percent. It’s down from a record high of $19,511 reached in December, the culmination of the more than 1,400 percent surge in 2017 as bitcoin burst on to the mainstream.

“I don’t think this is driven on any particular news, just the general downtrend after the 2017 run,” Kyle Samani, managing partner at Austin, Texas, crypto hedge fund Multicoin Capital, said in an email. “A lot of people who bought at $9,000 in April are realizing that they’re not going to break even anytime soon, and are instead trying to get out.”

Cryptocurrencies have been beset by a string of bad news. Most recently was the “cyber intrusion” on the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Coinrail last weekend that appeared to result in a loss of an unknown quantity of digital currency. Bitcoin slumped 12 percent on that news Monday.