To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:
Expected behavior
I get a blinking cursor on the citation field, or tab takes me to the empty paragraph block
Screenshots
( element is completely missing from the dom)

Desktop (please complete the following information):
Additional context
Tested and confirmed in Chrome 68.0.3440.106 using WordPress 4.9.8 and Gutenberg 3.6.2 but I didn't see the same bug happen when testing with Firefox 61.0.2. (36s)
HTML before:
<div class="components-autocomplete"><cite aria-label="Write citation…" aria-autocomplete="list" aria-expanded="false" role="textbox" aria-multiline="true" class="editor-rich-text__tinymce mce-content-body" contenteditable="true" data-is-placeholder-visible="false" id="mce_2"><br data-mce-bogus="1"></cite><div role="presentation"></div></div>
HTML after:
<div class="components-autocomplete"><br data-mce-bogus="1"></div>

Seen at http://alittletestblog.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=14474&action=edit running WordPress 4.9.8 and Gutenberg 3.6.2 using Chrome 68.0.3440.106 on macOS 10.13.6. (1m13s)
Just for reference, can you note which version of Firefox you tested with?
Firefox (on Mac)
Version 61.0.1
Build ID 20180704003137
Can confirm. Looking for a fix.
Seems to just happen when you delete the letter from the cite and then blur the field.
The cause seems to be cite being an inline element and using that as a RichText container. If I use a div or footer, the problem seems to disappear.
@designsimply @collinanderson Does #9195 fix the issue for you?
Closed by #8785