Alas, Poor Bitcoin

Double, double, toil and trouble, 

Bitcoin bust and Blockchain bubble.

Remember when the value of a single bitcoin was expected to hit $100,000?  Nellie Bowles, the NY Times' intrepid California tech reporter, does.

Today the price of Bitcoin — $19,783 last December — is $3,810. Litecoin was $366 a coin; it’s now $30. Ethereum was $1,400 in January; today it’s $130.

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The computing power needed to “mine” a Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency is now sometimes costing more than that coin is worth.

Blockchain, the technology developed to help manage Bitcoin, offers vast potential "to transform financial systems," Bowles writes. Inevitably, cockamamie blockchain ventures boiled up.

Even the word itself worked wonders. "When Long Island Iced Tea Company changed its name to Long Blockchain Company, its stock went up 500 percent in a day."