Bitcoin was heading towards a year-on-year loss on Wednesday, its 10th birthday, the first loss since last year's bull market, when the original and biggest digital coin muscled its way to worldwide attention with months of frenzied buying. By 1300 GMT, bitcoin was trading at $6,263 on the BitStamp exchange, leaving investors who had bought it on Halloween 2017 facing yearly losses of nearly 3 percent.
A year ago, bitcoin closed at $6,443.22 as it tore towards a record high of near $20,000, hit in December. That run, fuelled by frenzied buying by retail investors from South Korea to the United States, pushed bitcoin to calendar-year gains of over 1,300 percent.
Ten years ago, Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin's still-unidentified founder, released a white paper detailing the need for an online currency that could be used for payments without the involvement of a third party, such as a bank. Bitcoin has endured year-on-year losses before, according to data from CryptoCompare, most recently in 2015-15.
Retail investors still account for a strong proportion of trading, market players said. Investors who bet early on bitcoin and have stuck with it have faced a roller-coaster ride in its first decade. Many told Reuters they are optimistic that they are still onto a winner.
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