Bitcoin News Month of June

For the Bitcoin community, June has been a month of mixed blessings. The price tumbled frm $128.8 to $97.5 (and currently stands around $70), major Bitcoin network statistics like thenumber of transactions per block and the number of unique Bitcoin addresses used took a nosedive, and the Bitcoin Foundation received a cease and desist letter from the state of California’s Department of Financial Institutions. On the other hand, Google Trends volume, a statistic which estimates the global level of interest in Bitcoin, at least temporarily stopped its decline, and is now back at May 19-25 levels, or 20% of the peak. Media attention was mixed, with some articles arguing that Bitcoin “is losing its shine” and others saying that it is now“getting its groove back” following a few instances of good news.

As far as the price and popularity are concerned, it is my own thesis that we have now returned to a pattern that old-time Bitcoiners know all too well: the Gartner Hype Cycle. The Gartner Hype Cycle is a pattern that many technologies, ranging from machine learning to space exploration and virtual reality, consistently tend to face, and has five stages:  a “technology trigger”, a “peak of inflated expectations”,  a “trough of disillusionment”, a “slope of enlightenment” and finally  a “plateau of productivity”. Bitcoin users in 2011 and 2012 would frequently refer to this model, saying that the currency’s crash from $30 was simply the result of a hype bubble popping and a sign that the “real work” was only starting to come to fruition. In late 2012 to early 2013, many believed that the plateau of productivity was finally here. As it turns out, that was not the case – in fact, 2013 proved to be the start of a whole new hype cycle. However, this time is different. Although some anti-Bitcoin viewpoints have certainly come to the forefront, by and large today, unlike in 2011, the hopeless pessimism is simply not there. Investors have plunged into Bitcoin, and have committed themselves to working for the long haul. Hardened users have seen the Bitcoin price crash before, and are ready to live through a crash for a second time – that is, of course, if the crash is not already close to its bottom.