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For anyone who invested at the top of the crypto hype cycle over the past few weeks, today is a reprise of "Black Tuesday." By October 29, 1929, the Wall Street Crash had ended the Roaring 20s. This "very bad day" in crypto is a day where the faint of heart and newbies will take a gigantic beating, while HODLers will welcome the buying opportunity at bargain basement prices. The sun will come up tomorrow… or will it? Other than the obvious bursting bubble, is there anything to be learned from this brutal sell-off?

Bitcoin (BITCOMP) crashed hard over the weekend, and the selloff doesn't seem to be turning around too quickly. The crypto markets have been unusually volatile recently, and a contributing factor may be the Chinese government's serious crackdown on bitcoin mining operations. News of the crackdown is a few weeks old, but last week, a bunch of gigantic Chinese bitcoin mining operations shut down. This sudden drop in worldwide mining capability slowed transaction times from the algorithmically-set 10 minutes per block to more than 12 minutes per block, signaling to the market that the crackdown was real. This past weekend, even more Chinese miners went offline. This is no longer lip service or political theater; China is full-on anti-crypto.

Why? The official story: China says bitcoin uses too much energy.

For reference, the bitcoin blockchain uses 116 TWh of electricity per year, which is about 0.5% of the world's total annual electricity production and is more than many entire countries use. According to CNBC, if bitcoin were a country, it would be the 33rd largest consumer of electricity on earth. As a point of comparison, all of the internet service providers in the world, combined, use about 200 TWh per year (roughly 0.8% of the world's electricity).

Is it cryptomageddon?! We discuss that possibility on today's all-new podcast below: