The recent tumble in bitcoin, driven by a stampede of Chinese sellers who until last week were willing buyers at any price, has exposed the weakest link in bitcoin's until recently exponential rise: the mood and social psychology of Chinese momentum and bubble chasers, who like clockwork rush into any one given asset, bid it up to ridiculous levels, watch the bubble burst, before moving on to the next bubble.

The good news is that courtesy of $25 trillion in local savings, or more than double the amount in the US, the bubble eventually returns to where it burst. The bad news is that in the meantime, those who chased the original bubble lose most if not all of their money.

Unfortunately, for most of China's bitcoin traders, the bad news may be just starting.

Take the story of Ding Wen, who by the age of 34 had built up a personal fortune of more than two million yuan after years of hard work at an internet company in Nanjing, in east China's Jiangsu province. But, as SCMP recounts his tale, Wen saw most of that wealth go up in smoke on January 5, when China's bitcoin market crashed, sending the price of the virtual currency plunging 40 per cent in just a few hours after lunch.