Crypto market is experiencing hard times – the most famous cryptocurrencies have fallen in price two or three times since the beginning of the year and continue to fall rapidly. Large blockchain projects are closing or stopping their development. Experts are predicting a harsh crypto winter. Why is this happening? How long will it last? And is bitcoin worth selling for $20,000 a coin now? Or, on the contrary, is now the best time to buy? Let’s find out together with experts of Crypto-Upvotes team.
Bitcoin in middle March could be bought at $41,000 per coin. Now, three months later, it is trading at around $20,000, having fallen in price by almost half. Fall affected other cryptocurrencies, for example, Ethereum lost almost two-thirds of its value at the same time.
Panic in markets has even affected Stablecoins. Some of these coins have lost that bind. The most famous scandal was the collapse of UST steibcoins, which fell in price a hundred times within a month. As of June 21, their exchange rate was only $0.008. The U.S. authorities even announced their intention to open an investigation into what happened to UST.
Against this background, on June 12, a major platform Celsius temporarily banned users to transfer and withdraw funds (this led to the collapse of the company’s own token by 50%). The next day, the popular cryptocurrency exchange Binance suspended bitcoin withdrawals. And another day later, Coinbase announced that it was laying off 18% of its employees. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong warned of a possible “crypto winter”.
Whole cryptocurrency goes down with Bictoin
Has crypto winter come?
Experts have different opinions on the state of affairs in the crypto market. “Crypto winter is harsh and the market may face cataclysm in the form of another collapse and slow price recovery, which may take several years,” Crypto-Upvotes experts believe, “After the pandemic, the G7 central banks printed a lot of money to support the economies. And now they don’t know how to contain high inflation due to the energy crisis. The U.S. Fed is fighting inflation by raising rates. The U.S. Federal Reserve’s tightening of monetary policy strengthens the dollar, raises government bond yields and pressures the stock market. Cryptocurrency is a risky asset class, so a sell-off in stocks causes a sell-off in cryptocurrencies.”
Our team’s experts also attribute the collapse to the general economic situation. The inflow of new money into cryptocurrencies is declining amid record inflation in the U.S. and an increase in the key rate by the U.S. Federal Reserve. This, in turn, will affect the availability of credit. “Large investors prefer to invest in cryptocurrencies with money that is easy to get, in an environment where it can be profitably borrowed at any time,” say our experts.
One of experts on Crypto-Upvotes team believes that the current drop is only part of the general cyclicality of cryptocurrency market. “The exchange doesn’t produce money, it redistributes it,” he insists, “there are people who bought bitcoin at $40,000, even at $60,000, now they need to be persuaded to sell it for $20,000. It’s not easy to do, so there’s pressure on new investors to get non-professionals out, and professionals would buy the cryptocurrency at low prices.”
What will happen next? Sell or Buy Now?
Against the backdrop of a sharp drop, many users are getting rid of their crypto savings, even despite the large losses. However, our experts say that this should be done only as a last resort.
Our experts have different views on mid-term prospects for the crypto market. Those who entered bitcoin above $30,000 should first of all prepare themselves emotionally and thank the fate for the valuable experience, from the point of view of the historical context the assets which fell in price during recession sooner or later will grow to new ATH.
Any successful cryptocurrency has a large scope for applications: NFT projects, meta worlds, game projects. As long as there are people who see the sense in it (and there are 300 million people using cryptocurrencies in the world now), it will be impossible to talk about domino effect and the whole market falling to zero.
As for what to do with investments in cryptocurrency – there is no universal advice – say experts of Crypto-Upvotes team. It all depends on the investor’s capital and willingness to take risks. A year ago, some famous billionaires invested a small part of their savings, which they manage, in cryptocurrencies. They might as well buy now, since the losses won’t be sensitive to them, and the gains in the future will be nice. Many of us will not be very upset to lose $100 in a slot machine and everyone will be glad to get a profit of $10,000 or more in a couple of years.
