Has Bitcoin's Day of Reckoning Finally Come?

Bitcoin, the hardly contested financial juggernaut of the year, may not be as unstoppable as some had previously thought.

While the cryptocurrency giant certainly wrote a new chapter in e-finance history with a baffling 1,800% growth in value since January, speculations of devaluation and bubble burst have been gaining strength for some time, especially since its most recent peak on Sunday at $19,500 per coin. But when the world’s most successful cryptocurrency dipped below $12,000 earlier this morning, the nearly 40% decline sparked a wave of panic among the crypto-investors online.

Adding insult to injury, Coinbase, another major player in the cryptocurrency market, froze buying and selling on the exchange platform, claiming that it could not operate properly due to increased traffic. The news of the freeze comes amidst growing accusations of insider trading against the company after it made a surprise announcement earlier this week to carry Bitcoin's competitor currency, Bitcoin Cash.

The latest hiccups in the cryptocurrency market comes at a time when Bitcoin’s transaction fees have been skyrocketing even as its price continues to drop, making each trade of the cryptocurrency seem more expensive than it is worth.

Despite the widespread speculations of a Bitcoin bubble, others argue that such fluctuations are only temporary “corrections” and the price of Bitcoin will continue to rise. One of the most vocal figures in the crypto-optimistic camp is the infamous computer security entrepreneur John McAfee, whose bold claim that “bubbles are mathematically impossible in this new paradigm” became widely mocked earlier this month.

In response to today's market events, McAfee tweeted a plea for everyone to "stop panicking" and blamed Christmas for the cash outs, promising an enormous boom after the holiday.

Yesterday evening, Twitter user @ProudMoolie posted a panicked tweet claiming to have mortgaged his house for $75,000 to invest in Bitcoin, updating an hour later that he had sold his coins to afford food for his four children.

On Reddit's /r/Bitcoin forum, users are lamenting having purchased the currency at its all-time high price, with calls from true believers to "hodl," an intentional misspelling of "hold" often used as an inside joke for resisting the urge to sell one's holdings. Meanwhile, others are referring to the price drop as a “Christmas Special” for buyers looking for a bargain.

Whether or not cryptocurrencies manage to rebound from this dip in value is anyone's guess, but, for now, it might be a good idea to invest in some Pink Wojaks.