The bitcoin price fell back below the $8,000 level on Tuesday after the flagship cryptocurrency failed to receive a Bitcoin Pizza Day bump. Bitcoin had briefly peaked above $8,600 on Monday, giving investors a false hope that it would make a run back toward $9,000. Unfortunately, this rally proved unsustainable, and the bitcoin price entered Tuesday morning trading near $8,400 and continued to decline throughout the day. Shortly before 22:40 UTC, the bitcoin price slipped below $8,000, and it ultimately dipped as low as $7,943 before recovering back to a present value of $7,968, representing a daily decline of about five percent. Bitcoin’s sluggish performance has not been an isolated occurrence. The cryptocurrency market cap as a whole has declined by approximately $18 billion for the day, from $381 billion on Monday to $363 billion at the time of writing. BTC Price ChartAs CCN reported, the recent market downtrend has been linked to several factors, including a scandal involving South Korea’s two largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Bitfinex’s announcement that it will share some users’ tax information with the government, and the belief that the trustee of the Mt. Gox estate has begun selling more of the bankrupt exchange’s cryptocurrency holdings. Nevertheless, large-scale investors with extended investment horizons remain bullish over the long haul, expressing encouragement that Wall Street firms are becoming increasingly interested in participating directly in the nascent cryptocurrency markets. Click here for a real-time bitcoin price chart