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Article snippet: You can’t exactly say that Bitcoin was burning a hole in anyone’s pocket, but the virtual currency burned a hole in quite a few hearts on Friday when it plunged 30 percent in less than 24 hours after defying gravity for the past few months. Many skeptics of the virtual currency, which operates with no government or company in charge, have predicted that it was in bubble territory and due for a collapse. Still, the drop to around $12,000 a Bitcoin from around $17,500 was enough to set off a panic among buyers, even while stock market investors remained calm and much of the world, unaware that Bitcoin exists, was oblivious to the uproar. On Reddit, the online forum visited by many Bitcoin followers, people posted phone numbers for suicide hotlines for bereft investors. A popular service that sells Bitcoin to many individual investors went down, overwhelmed by orders. “If someone is depressed by the sudden drop in price, remember that many of us are going through the same thing,” read one post on Reddit, which got more than 400 responses. “Please don’t think nothing crazy. You can use my thread to vent.” Bitcoins can be used to pay for things online, but they have mostly been treated as an investment because there is a cap of 21 million on the number of Bitcoin that will ever be released. The records of all Bitcoins are maintained by a network of computers around the world. The creator of Bitcoin, someone using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, has never been tracked down,... Link to the full article to read more