So one could say this: If a startup's stock flucuates like this, it's the most normal thing in the world. But if it happens to Bitcoin, it's something we should criticize!
If you don't feel comfortable comparing it with stock, then compare it with gold. Even after thousands of years, and a market capitalization of 8 trillions of dollars, it still has price fluctuations.
Bitcoin has only ~7 billions of dollars of market capitalization. It's comparable to what we call a "penny stock". Anyone with a few millions can move the price. And even with hundreds of thousands of dollars, you could move the price in one particular exchange.
If you still don't understand it, watch this video:
Not on these scales. Artificial adjustments to the dollar happen on month increments, possibly days.
> while the other depends solely on the whims of the free market
Free is relative, the Bitcoin market is still too small to be isolated from manipulation.
> same way startups' stock fluctuates
Care to quote a startup stock that is traded decently (Bitcoin isn't a penny stock) and has a 10% dip in minutes that isn't newsworthy for anyone interested in that stock?
Because I can bet anyone following it would find it newsworthy.
> Not on these scales. Artificial adjustments to the dollar happen on month increments, possibly days.
To give you a sense of perspective, the FED was printing $55bn/month this year [0]. So the FED prints the whole Bitcoin economy ($6.7bn) every 3.6 days, ... day after day, month after month ... for many many years now [1].
[0] http://www.forbes.com/sites/samanthasharf/2014/03/19/fed-cut...
[1] http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/52e4250869bedd404cb...
"traded decently", gotta love those vague expressions.
Any company that at some point was just a small startup, sold stock privately, and today is big, has had these swings. Eg: Facebook, Amazon, etc.
If you don't know this, it probably means you have never bought private stock.