Bitcoin rollercoaster continues as price dives below $10,000

Just a week ago, as the price of one bitcoin surpassed $10,000 for the first time in more than a year, it appeared that the rise of the most popular cryptocurrency is unstoppable. 

Each day, Bitcoin hit new highs, almost touching $14,000 on June 27 — and then the growth abruptly stopped and the price started going the other direction. Five days later, and one bitcoin dropped to $9,835, having fallen more than 10 percent in the last 24 hours according to CoinMarketCap. (During the couple of hours needed to write this text, the price recovered to $10,225.)

The prices of other popular cryptocurrencies followed suit. Ethereum is down to $282, a 4.5 percent decline in 24 hours, and XRP is down to $0.395, a 3.4 percent decline in that same period. 

So what has changed in the last week? Frankly, not that much. 

The consensus amongst prominent cryptocurrency investors and traders appears to be that Bitcoin has simply risen too high, too fast. Investor Mike Novogratz, for example, called the recent pump a “frenzy,” and said he’d sold some of his Bitcoin last Wednesday, and that he wished he’d sold more. Days before the crash, trader Alex Krüger said prices will pull back “eventually.” Crypto researcher Jameson Lopp warned abo