How do Bitcoin supporters manage the accident?

At the highest point in December 2017, a Bitcoin was worth $ 25,717. Its current value is almost a fifth of that, but still well above any point before 2017.

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"Technology really attracted me as something that could take the upper hand from traditional financial structures," said Saleh.

At first he became interested in the cryptocurrency after seeing a documentary on Netflix, Banking on Bitcoin. From there, he continued to do research for several months before taking the big step in October.

Saleh acknowledged that the Bitcoin boom was at least partly due to investors who did not really understand what they were going to.

"Probably there is only about 10% who understands technology, I met people who [hold crypto] and it can not even explain the process of a cryptographic function, or how money works, or what is a private or public key, "he said.

Andrew Baker was a trader who dumped all of his Bitcoin holdings during this boom period and has no plans to re-enter the market – largely due to the level of people's investments despite the lack of understanding of the product.

"It's the biggest silly theory: buy something only when you think you can sell it to someone else," he said.

"It's not just bitcoin or cryptocurrency in general, as happens in stock markets, in real estate markets … practically anything that can be exchanged".

Baker bought for the first time in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies several years before the boom, and estimated to have achieved a return of "several thousand percent" on its initial investment.

"In practice I was just waiting for a series of technical indicators of irrational exuberance," referring to a term coined by Nobel Prize winner Robert Shiller.

"You can not use the same method to measure irrational exuberance like Shiller does in titles because there is no way to measure gains in digital resources." Other ways to measure risk taking include the percentage of assets purchased with borrowed money and the amount of leverage taken to invest in cryptocurrency, but such information is largely kept hidden by trade and as such the best measure of market hysteria has become the frequency of searching for relevant Google terms.

"There is no real method to understand the earning potential of any cryptocurrency: you are investing in an idea rather than investing in a company".

Laszlo Peter, director of KPMG, innovation and digital solutions and head of blockchain services, says it is difficult to understand whether the market will resume or not in 2019.

"What really hinders Bitcoin is what made it popular – that is volatility," he said.

"2017 was a classic case of fear of losing prices, prices have risen for no particular reason".

Peter says that despite the volatility of cryptocurrency, there are many potential opportunities for technology beyond the cryptocurrency market and that, with some luck, a central bank will distribute its currency in the next 12 months; but probably not in Australia, which says it has more than one "wait and see" approach.

A flash of light for investors confident of criptovaluti is the imminent arrival of Bakkt, the trading platform proposed by the Intercontinental Exchange that will allow consumers and institutions to buy, sell, store and spend digital goods.

However, Baker is not convinced: "For me, it's not much different than having a stock market by itself, all they're trying to do is have an equivalent of the stock market for digital assets."

Saleh offered a more optimistic grip and stressed that the current Bitcoin trade volume was higher than a year ago.

"Why would Wall Street bring out a product if they thought something was dead?"

"Many people will get emotional and will not look at things from an objective point of view – I think the people who relax the most are people like me who do not bring emotions.