So.... it may likely never go up past $20k ever again, as when this happened, the "big gun investors" were involved. They held on to it for almost a year to see what it would do. Many more people who got in at the right time, and were able to put a good amount of money also got a pretty good opportunity. The media constantly talking about Bitcoin drove up the interest in it, sparking the price even more, so than more people were buying, helping to drive the price up for the existing investors. Then a massive selloff happened, and then on social media and even the news, you heard, "buy on the dip" constantly.
So people did that, not realizing that investors were doing mass-sell offs of their profits. Buy on the dip, buy on the dip. Unfortunately, this scam only works for so long before the "new investors" weren't making any profit at all. Now we get another mass sell off which you see now, and the same thing is happening. Now there are still people who are staying in it, who believe it is going to skyrocket back up, because more people are going to be interested in it. Especially countries where people don't have a bank or don't want a bank, that will drive the price back up, but essentially, it will come back down.
Bitcoin in theory is a great idea, but a play on the entire world just leaves it unable to sustain itself as an actual currency the world can use. There were people who bought and sold like 10 Bitcoins for a pizza pie. That was the most expensive pizza pie ever bought, if the owner of that pizza pie held on to those Bitcoins. The fact is: Bitcoin is the middle man between my currency and your currency. However, if my current can't really equal your currency, than Bitcoin is no longer seen as a great value.
This is the flaw in Bitcoin right now. If I give you $5 for a pizza pie. In 3 months, that $5 is still $5. In 3 months time, my 5 bitcoins could be worth millions. It makes me want to hold on to them and never give them up (I only actually own about $25 of Bitcoin right now). But in 3 months, will my $25 be worth $2500? In reality, my $25 in 3 months is worth $25. Bitcoin has this ultimate power to manipulate, which instills fear into all the governments around the world.
If you have no control over the money, you have no control over the people. Therefore, most governments and banks are now banning the buying and selling of Bitcoin. No better way to kill a currency than to end the funding to it. Most stores that once accepted Bitcoin are no longer accepting it. Social media, specifically Facebook is banning Bitcoin ads, because it has generated mass ICOs and fraud, scamming people out of millions of dollars. And Facebook was the driving vehicle for this. They don't want their name to be associated with that. Think of the investors!
Bitcoin is likely to still be accepted by the underground. On the dark web, it is still being traded massively. It had been the perfect vehicle for moving mass loads of money without being traced. It will be valued for as long as it can be converted into USD. Really, there isn't much else you can do with Bitcoin except buy it and trade it, and convert it back into your own money. It is truly great, in idea, and in theory. But the law and all governments cannot handle that kind of massive amount of money being virtually untraceable. The government is in line with Coinbase, which is a huge provider, and gives the IRS full access to view the logs of people's money, thus this removes the anonymity of Bitcoin, removing its effectiveness, and its value as an incognito money transfer system.
Fortunately for the dark web.... and the exchange that aren't based in America, where the U.S. government has no jurisdiction. Bitcoin is losing its promise because the government got involved. Wherever the U.S. government goes, disaster follows. There are so many cryptocurrencies that can be used to move money without being traced very well, and that is where these other coins will have their small battles with each other, just as Bitcoin, Eretheum, and Litecoin had done. The most money comes from the drug dealers, criminals, and others doing shady business. Crypto is valuable to them in that sense, but ultimately, they eventually convert it back to USD.
Truth be told, however, the real threat to government is a decentralized government, and once you decentralize the money, the government and all the powers that be will no longer have the power they currently have: the power to control people with money.