I don't think that the article was trying to make the argument that Bitcoin is invalid once it goes lower than the dollar or tied to a specific exchange rate. Rather, I think they were saying that the wild up-down-up-way down of the exchange rate demonstrates that BTC is controlled purely by speculation and has no value outside of that.  I'm not really sure that, at this point, I disagree with that assumption.

I do disagree with the article that BTC is dead and that it will never have any value because you "can't hold it".  Obviously WoW and other MMOs have proven that digital objects have real value.  For a tech website, who ever wrote that article is really tech ignorant.