Is Bitcoin in a bear market ?

The “digital gold” has yet to modify the global payments system. However, there comes up a question, how to define a bear market.

As Bitcoin showed 20% crash in value, some analysts and financial journalists called it a start of bear market. At one point the virtual coin met that description on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported.

It marks the first time for bitcoin to slide into bear-market territory since … last month. There have now been three bear-market dips for bitcoin just since August.

For comparison, the last time that S&P 500 Index saw a bear market was in 2009. When Wells Fargo & Co., the American bank with a market capitalisation roughly the size of bitcoin, last saw a bear market for its shares the drop took more than a year to materialise — from July 2015 to October 2016.

The latest bitcoin slide comes amid a whirlwind of news in crypto-land, including a rising profile for rival bitcoin cash and the bankruptcy of a South Korean exchange that suffered a cyber attack. For those who bought at the start of the year, the consolation for being in a bear market is that they’re still up more than 1,600 per cent.