You're talking about this: http://torimagesbp2vt3u.onion/i/gBgh.png The drop doesn't look as big on that graph because BTC price is averaged over some time period. That crash was caused by the pirateat40 scam. There was a lot of chatter on bitcointalk.org beforehand of people fleeing. If you're going to mess around with bitcoins, you really should be reading the forum and keeping up on the latest news, rumors, etc. Several factors are helping bitcoin right now. In the last few months, legal businesses like Wordpress.com and Reddit have started accepting it. The FinCen report a few days ago made bitcoin officially legal in the US. It wasn't illegal before, but the US gov had not taken an official position on it. Now it's explicitly legal. That paves the way for much wider adoption among mainstream businesses. And there haven't been any major hacks or thefts in a long while. That helps to build confidence. Unless some catastrophic event happens, I expect BTC price to keep rising for some time. So not holding onto your coins from $5 is a sunk cost, but you can always buy now and still make money.