Bitcoin tumbles most in 2 years after topping $1000 mark

The price of Bitcoin tumbled on Thursday, at one point suffering its biggest one-day drop in two years.

The price fell 16.2% to $946.60, according to CoinDesk, though earlier in the New York morning the digital currency fell as low as $893.66, a drop of nearly 21% on the day.

The price of a single coin of the cryptocurrency has surged of late, recently topping the milestone price of $1,000 for the first time since 2013. It more than doubled over the course of 2016, boosted by an increasing adoption by investors, improving market fundamentals and a perception that the world’s largest economies are growing increasingly unstable. Over the past month, bitcoin’s market capitalization has increased by about $4 billion.

Bitcoin is notoriously volatile, seeing massive daily swings, often for unexplained reasons. While the market capitalization of Bitcoin recent crossed $14 billion, it remains thinly traded, and that low liquidity and exacerbate market swings.

The rally in bitcoin has spilled out over into other digital currencies, with investors seeking cheaper alternatives. Other digital currencies were retreating along with their bitcoin peer on Thursday but were faring comparatively better. For example, Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was down 9% and another smaller alternative coin, Zcash, fell 3%, according to site CryptoCompare.com.

What is the future of bitcoin?

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While investors have been closely watching the surge in bitcoin, more interest could come in March, when the Securities and Exchange Commission is scheduled to either approve or disapprove the first exchange-traded fund that will exclusively track the digital currency.