We’re certainly in a much different place now than we were 12 months ago. What was a hot commodity has turned into a hot potato nobody wants to touch. Still, this almost certainly won’t be the end for bitcoin, or cryptocurrencies as a whole. Despite the realization that it was a bubble, even the toughest critics see some sort of a future.
For 21 years, the software company Kaseya labored in relative obscurity — at least until cybercriminals exploited it in early July for a massive ransomware attack that snarled businesses around the world and escalated U.S.-Russia diplomatic tensions.

But it wasn’t just outside pessimism that led to the slump, but infighting as well. Blockchains are decentralized, and democratic systems require buy-in from participants in order to keep the engines running. When there’s a schism that can’t be decided by the majority, all hell breaks loose.
OK perhaps that’s a little far-fetched. But what is behind crypto’s crazy climb over the past 18 months, we hear you ask? We don’t mean to suggest that the pandemic hasn’t been involved, because we think it has, but not in the way that this chart criminal implies — not, in other words, because it’s some kind of safe haven that traders flock to when they are worried about Covid cases rising; the data don’t bear that idea out.