“In any other time, in any part of 2013, and even before that, an event like Dell [taking bitcoin], would have shot the price up by 20-50%,” said Mark Lamb, chief executive of London-based exchange Coinfloor, which has been growing its daily trading volume of about 150 BTC since it launched in March.

In fact, the value of a bitcoin hadn’t closed below $600 over the last 30 days, according to the CoinDesk BPI, except for a blip today, which saw it dive briefly to a low of $591.

The trough of disillusionment

Maybe bitcoin’s price needs more than good news.

After all, people need time to figure out world-changing, disruptive technologies like bitcoin. Positive newsflow in the interim isn’t going to help the world adapt to our bitcoin future, no matter how many computers Dell sells.

That’s what Joe Lee, a trader and founder of bitcoin derivatives exchange BTC.sx, thinks is going on.

“The price is stagnant because we’re going through a trough of technology adoption for crypto currencies, where the world is working how to take it,” he said, citing technology research firm Gartner’s theory of a technology adoption ‘hype cycle’.

Gartner’s hype cycle, which comes complete with interactive chart, is a fancier way of saying that all that positive news is going to take time to sink into people’s minds. In Gartner-speak, we went over the Peak of Inflated Expectations in January, when the price was soaring, and now we’re headed into the Trough of Disillusionment.

Wow team, you all must really be depressed to refuse to write anything in the midst of a 2000 coin Chinese pump (which doesn't even get us close to where we were, yesterday, but still). Cheer up!!