It's all relative to something. During the Wall Street crash in 1929, Dow fell down only ~30%. Bitcoin lost ~70% from the peak. It's definitely a bust. (as in fall in value / no growth) You could say instead that it's just back to normal value after a period of abnormal pricing - but then what kind of asset has so much uncertainty that people can pump up the price 4-5x for months?

Maybe it’s higher variance and higher expected value than the stock market. I don’t believe that but it’s certainly a conclusion you could draw from the price action. The overall return since inception is much better than the stock market at any similar time frame in history, even after multiple >50% pullbacks.

A single entity having higher variance than the average growth of the entire measured economy is not surprising.

" The 2008 crisis didn't happen because my dollars are still worth more than in 1831 "

Whoever told you that your dollars are worth more than in 1831 should not be trusted...

To be fair, the article is a lot better than the title suggests.