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In the United States, Charles Herman, a 29-year-old businessman in Charleston, California, became obsessed with virtual currencies last September. He said that now he felt like he had wasted 10 months of his life trying to play in the markets.
While he basically returned to the $ 4,000 he put, he was soured about the revolutionary promises that virtual currency enthusiasts did for technology last year and resumed investing his money in real estate.
"I guess I thought we would be" attached to the man "when I got on board," Herman said. "But I think" the man "has already noticed and had an exit strategy".
Much of the anger that investors experience is towards the smallest virtual currencies, or alt coins, that the entrepreneurs sell in the so-called initial offers of coins. These coins should have served as payment mechanisms for the new software that the entrepreneurs were building.
But almost none of these companies delivered the promised software, leaving the tokens useless, if not as speculative resources. Several coins have been exposed as definitive scams.
"I think I'd like to see most of the monsters go to zero before they feel that all space is not too expensive," Herman said.
Bitcoin has generally been better maintained with investors. It is down about 70 percent from historic highs, rather than 90 percent losses that have suffered lesser-known digital tokens. But even this has struggled to earn a lot from speculative investment.
"We also saw that Bitcoin is not ready for mass adoption and day-to-day use," said Herman.
Despite this pessimism, social networks where cryptocurrency fanatics gather to exchange information are full of people talking about their intention to keep their coins, hoping they will recover once the technology has time to recover the clamor .
Tony Yoo, 26, a financial analyst in Los Angeles, invested more than $ 100,000 of his savings last fall. At their lowest point, its holdings have lost almost 70 percent in value.
But Mr. Yoo is still a big supporter of the idea that these tokens can provide a new way to make online transactions, without the big corporate brokers we rely on today. Many of the groups that raised funds last year are still working on the products they have promised, with a lot of serious engineers attracted to the projects.
"There's a lot more behind this new wave of technology and innovation that I'm sure will take control of our company in due course," said Yoo.
With low prices, he said he was actually trying to put more money into the markets.
This way of thinking was encouraged by the people who invested in Bitcoin in 2013, when for the first time it exceeded $ 1,000. That market was followed by an incident in which the price of Bitcoin fell more than 80%. But after a long period of rest, the price recovered. Even with recent losses, the value of a Bitcoin is around $ 6,500 – more than 500 percent compared to the peak of 2013.
"Five years ago, I was broke, unemployed and I was ashamed to use my real name," Ryan Selkis, a popular virtual currency personality, wrote on Twitter last week. "For the new fanatics, your 14-month downdraft remains, 85% and you will not regret it."
Twitter is also full of complaints, like that of a user named @Notsofrugaljoey, who wrote: "It's really hard to lose all my hard-earned money, just broken and cried."
On Reddit, a user in the United Arab Emirates published a photo of the $ 100,000 loan he had bought in December to buy cryptocurrencies – and he will now pay his salary for the next three years.
Mr. Roberts, the British investor who has seen most of his $ 23,000 to fade, is holding his coins in case they turn around. But for now he stopped trading and is looking for another job.
"I'm living on some small savings left in my bank account," Roberts said. "I made a mistake and now I will unfortunately have to pay the costs for the next few years".
