Lost in the hubbub over the feeding frenzy in cryptocurrencies and related stocks is the original digital coin itself.

Bitcoin fell as much as 10 percent to less than $17,000 on Tuesday, the steepest decline since before futures were first introduced on Dec. 10.

Investors have shown more interest in smaller digital coins such as ether and ripple, where gains have lagged bitcoin’s 17-fold rally this year, and as others speculate there is more room to gain because of their smaller market capitalizations.