BTC price reached its peak at $20,000 on December 17, 2017 which happened to be the exact same date that the CME Group (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) became the first provider of Bitcoin derivatives to the market. Immediately BTC price started dropping down the next day and it went down all the way to $13,000 only within the next five days! Not much needed to be said after that.
FYI: https://ethereumworldnews.com/report-crypto-platform-bakkt-u...
There is no instrument to borrow and short real Bitcoin.
It's not like a regular asset, where the most you can lose is what you put in. You could lose literally everything.
In the case of stocks, there is some limit in the sense that there's an underlying asset. There's some dispute as to the real long-term value of a share of Facebook or Netflix or Google, but ultimately there is one: your share entitles you to a piece of the profits of that company. It's still possible to lose a huge amount of money shorting stocks (say, you short a nearly-worthless stock in a drug company whose product is surprisingly approved), but it's very rare.
With bitcoin, there's no underlying value to the asset. That makes it extremely volatile; there's no sound way to guess what it could ultimately be worth. Further, unlike stocks, there's no regulator trying to put a damper on price manipulation. (Basically, every dirty trick that was ever tried in the stock market now has rules against it, but they all get dusted off and tried again.) So shorting BTC puts you at significant risk.
Some people are long on BTC because they think that ultimately there is a real value there, and happens to be higher than the current trading price. Their willingness to do so is what will ultimately determine that long-term price. Shorting it is betting that they're wrong... assuming you have the financial wherewithal to wait for the "long term". Or are willing to assume the risk that you're right in the short term, too.
The same happened to gold. As soon as one entity controlled the vast majority of gold the price ceased to be stable. Central banks already essentially destroyed gold as payment method. If central banks only sell 1% of their gold assets they increase the supply on the actual tradeable market so much that the price can be vastly manipulated. It would be smart if they do the same with bitcoin.
Some 'coiners actually believe this. Wow.
Most assessments of Bitcoin's potential impact on the economy come out saying it's negligible.
This is comedy gold.
Comedy bitcoin.