The reality: bitcoin doubled its value in the span of a month. what you're seeing is the market correction after all the panic buys and people jumping on board thinking it's a gravy train. after the dip, it'll continue steady growth.
evidence? this has been happening for almost 9 years straight. to the point where anyone who's been seriously paying attention already knows about this pattern.
Bitcoin and blockchain technology grew out of the cryptographic community due to ideological concerns. The questions they asked themselves was, how do you create a system of trade that doesn't need a centralized point of authority, can maximize privacy, and is capable of scaling to meet worldwide demand? At this moment the game is about how governments, financial institutions, and other authoritative bodies recognize that bitcoin's success, politically, means their days of hegemonic control are about to wane. The core support of the tech is ideological, the value of it is practical, and the technology cannot be un-invented, licensed, or regulated. It's here to stay in one form or another.
What you're seeing, and what this hype and hyperbole articles like this are based on, however, are people ignorant or apathetic to the larger meaning of the technology. They see the excitement of a new currency as an opportunity not grounded in the tech itself. Those opportunities have manifested in the ability to buy/sell black market goods, create pyramid schemes that prey on people's ignorance of how the technology works, and a large number of investors who are building wealth based on day-trading. They're using the volatility for short-term gains.
This easily makes it seem like it's a crazy risk. But it's actually just a new system working out the kinks.
What's not being reported is how bitcoin futures market just launched that will use Bitcoin Cash, BTC's sister currency, as the trade currency to help stabilize the price. This will allow regular retailers to begin setting prices for goods and services on a seasonal basis rather than day to day. This opens up bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to become practical for storefront purposes. In 6-8 months bitcoin will be in the news again, setting record prices, and spurious debates about retail shops accepting bitcoin will be in the news. Ho Hum. Looks like it (once again for the 8th year in a row) didn't bottom out at zero...
This is the internet before AOL. When it was clunky and shitty and hard to understand and not widely in use. Criminals used the internet then, normal citizens didn't see any practical use for it, and naysayers said the exact same thing.