How The Bitcoin Collapse Stacks Up Against History's Ugliest Market Crashes

Yesterday, Bitcoin plummeted from a morning high of $266 all the way to $105 in the afternoon before stabilizing around $150.

From $266 to $105 is a 61 percent decline.

So, how does that stack up against some of the worst stock market crashes in American history?

There were "Black Monday" and "Black Tuesday" in October 1929, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 12.8 percent and 11.7 percent, respectively, directly preceding the Great Depression.

There was another "Black Monday" in October 1987, when the Dow plummeted 22.6 percent. The 1987 "Black Monday" still holds the record for the biggest single-day percentage decline on the Dow ever.

On October 15, 2008, amid a heightened period of economic and market uncertainty in the wake of the failure of Lehman Brothers a month before, the Dow reacted extremely negatively to news that the Treasury would invest $250 billion in the country's nine largest banks, falling 7.9 percent.

The chart below shows these market crashes compared with what happened to Bitcoin.