#比特币披萨节# Bitcoin has gone through what kind of hardships – black swan in the crypto world

1. The Fall of Mentougou (February 2014)
In 2014, the world's largest Bitcoin exchange Mt was hacked, and 850,000 Bitcoins disappeared without a trace. It's important to know that there are only a total of 21 million Bitcoins, which means that 4% of the total Bitcoin supply was lost. At the time, this amounted to a total loss of up to $450 million in 2014 dollars, considering the weight of the currency when there was no inflation that year, which everyone should be aware of.
The final result led to Bitcoin plummeting from $800 to $100, a drop of 80%, while exposing the vulnerabilities of exchanges and making many investors realize that this decentralized utopia is still governed by centralized loopholes.
As of 2024, Mentougou made compensation, but the delayed ten years saw the value of Bitcoin double, and the compensation could not be timely. After all, it was only 450 million dollars back then, which is also 50,000 dollars in Bitcoin in 2024. Making compensation is a significant amount of money for the entire crypto world and even the world.
2. China ICO Ban (September 2017)
In 2017, the frenzy of cryptocurrencies swept across the globe, with ICO projects in the Chinese market sprouting like wild grass. However, with so many people issuing coins, it led to a mix of all sorts of scams in the entire crypto world. Those who experienced it know that the small coins at that time were merely the reapers' sickles for the big players, and later, in order to regulate, on September 4th, seven ministries in China jointly issued a document to completely halt ICOs. Bitcoin plunged 30% in a single day, its market value evaporated by 80%, countless projects went to zero, and investors lost everything. This "political black swan" made the entire crypto world feel the power of the state for the first time.
Largest project loss: A certain project's white paper only packaged "blockchain + sharing economy" and managed to raise over 100 million yuan, ultimately turning into a bubble with the ban.
3. Black Thursday: The Stampede Under the Pandemic ( March 2020 )
On March 12, 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a global financial market crash, and Bitcoin could not escape the outcome of the crash, falling from $8,000 to $3,800, while Ethereum plummeted from $288 to $88. Leveraged contract investors faced liquidations of $7 billion within 24 hours, and the exchange servers were even overloaded and crashed.
This plunge is closely related to the macroeconomy and cryptocurrency; cryptocurrency is not a safe-haven asset like gold, but rather an amplifier of risk assets.
Survivor's memory: "That night, I watched helplessly as my account went from 1 million to negative, and I couldn't even click the close button."