The crypto winter gets colder: more job losses, warnings of Bitcoin falling to $5,000...

[midian182]

A hot potato: The crypto winter isn't thawing; it's getting colder. That's the opinion of a cryptocurrency exchange CEO who has laid off 30% of his staff over the past two days, a trend that's been pervasive within the industry for many months and has been exacerbated by FTX's collapse. How much worse could things get? One scenario predicts Bitcoin falling as low as $5,000, a level not seen since March 2020.

The world's most popular crypto has been on a downward trajectory since it hit that near-$69,000 high back in November 2021. The industry was rocked following the collapse of TerraUSD in May, and the recent implosion of exchange FTX sent seismic shockwaves throughout marketplaces.

The so-called crypto winter has seen digital asset prices fall (including those of NFTs), lawsuits, bankruptcies, and job losses. Joining crypto exchange giant Kraken in laying off staff are Bybit and Swyftx, which are reducing their headcounts by 30% and 35%, respectively, writes Bloomberg.

Swyftx CEO Alex Harper told employees in a letter that the industry could see more "black swan-type events," while Bybit boss Ben Zhou warned, "we are entering into an even colder winter than we had anticipated."

Standard Chartered's global head of research, Eric Robertsen, wrote that one of those surprise black swan scenarios is Bitcoin falling even further next year, down to $5,000. That pessimism is shared by BlackRock Inc. CEO Larry Fink, who believes "most" crypto companies will not survive the repercussions of FTX's collapse.

Could BTC fall to $5,000 again?

The European Central Bank, which has never tried to hide its disdain for crypto, last week called Bitcoin "cumbersome, slow and expensive," adding that it is on the "road to irrelevance" and has "never been used to any significant extent for legal real-world transactions." The comments came after ECB President Christine Lagarde said crypto is both based on and worth "nothing" in May.

Source: Balthazar, DappRadar

According to NFT gaming platform Balthazar DAO's latest NFT Marketplace Update, November set a new record low for monthly NFT sales across the top 5 marketplaces combined this year ($394.02 million). Case in point: Justin Bieber's Bored Ape NFT that cost him $1.2 million at the start of 2022 was recently valued at $69,000.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/96857-crypto-winter-gets-colder-more-job-losses-warnings.html

 

[VitalyT]

The society is waking up from the crypto high, with a hangover, bruised sobering faces, and the synapses beginning to fire behind eyes. A frightening sight, but a welcome one! LOL.

 

[R00sT3R]

Its only the legions of drug dealers, Pedo's, general criminals & tin foil hat wearing basement dwellers, paranoid about 'Big Government' coming to take away their assault weapons keeping Crypto a 'thing' at all these days.

 

[letsgoiowa]

How many times has the death of BTC been declared over the years and it's always come back to new ATHs and adoption?
Interesting.

 

[yRaz]

I'd buy bitcoin at $5000, I cashed out at $5000 back in 2017 I think

 

[m4a4]

Last I checked, economies aren't doing too good, people aren't spending much money, and not even stocks are doing that great.
And people are still expecting a risky/volatile asset to be in an upwards trajectory despite the cold markets? And if it's not, it's dead? Lol, the lack of critical thinking with that mindset is hilarious.

Might as well go to reddit for your stock market advice, you'll find smarter people there...

 

[Rq3EWAq]

How many times has the death of BTC been declared over the years and it's always come back to new ATHs and adoption?
Interesting.

Bitcoin has been declared dead, unusable or dying nearly 500 times in various papers.

https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/

 

[takaozo]

Hey look a day without Musk news, let's write about BTC

 

[wiyosaya]

Surprise, surprise! Something with no intrinsic value continues to fall backward towards no intrinsic value and people are surprised?

 

[jason lee]

Last I checked, economies aren't doing too good, people aren't spending much money, and not even stocks are doing that great.
And people are still expecting a risky/volatile asset to be in an upwards trajectory despite the cold markets? And if it's not, it's dead? Lol, the lack of critical thinking with that mindset is hilarious.

Might as well go to reddit for your stock market advice, you'll find smarter people there...

Cryptocurrency was supposed to be a hedge against all that, a haven for a market turmoil similar to gold and other precious metals. That was one of the supposed benefits investors touted. Well guess that has been proved false.

 

[Rq3EWAq]

Surprise, surprise! Something with no intrinsic value continues to fall backward towards no intrinsic value and people are surprised?

What's the value behind dollar, again? I can exchange it back to gold, right...? right...?

 

[harby]

Last I checked, economies aren't doing too good, people aren't spending much money, and not even stocks are doing that great.
And people are still expecting a risky/volatile asset to be in an upwards trajectory despite the cold markets? And if it's not, it's dead? Lol, the lack of critical thinking with that mindset is hilarious.

Might as well go to reddit for your stock market advice, you'll find smarter people there...

Crypto was meant to counter exactly that.

 

[captaincranky]

What's the value behind dollar, again? I can exchange it back to gold, right...? right...?

No, but you can still buy gold with it.

 

[fps4ever]

You want stability purchase gold or silver. You want to try and invest for more profit buy company stocks.

You want magical coins buy crypto...or better buy lottery tickets, lots of them.

 

[m4a4]

Cryptocurrency was supposed to be a hedge against all that, a haven for a market turmoil similar to gold and other precious metals. That was one of the supposed benefits investors touted. Well guess that has been proved false.

Crypto was meant to counter exactly that.

That's never how I understood it (especially considering how fickle people are). But there are id!ots on both sides. On one side they say crypto is a scam and dead, on the other they say you should put all of your savings into it for high returns (and a bunch of other claims).
The main claim about (at least bitcoin) it is that it's resistant to inflation because there are a finite number of coins. You can't inflate it by creating more, unlike fiat currency.

And until a crypto coin goes from investment to a common currency, it's going to act like an investment. And last I checked, investments aren't exactly doing too well.

 

[wiyosaya]

What's the value behind dollar, again? I can exchange it back to gold, right...? right...?

This is somehow an argument for supporting crypto? Like @captaincranky said with Gold, you can still buy almost anything with $. Try that with crypto and its mad hourly value swings.

 

[wiyosaya]

That's never how I understood it (especially considering how fickle people are). But there are id!ots on both sides. On one side they say crypto is a scam and dead, on the other they say you should put all of your savings into it for high returns (and a bunch of other claims).
The main claim about it is that it's resistant to inflation because there are a finite number of coins. You can't inflate it by creating more, unlike fiat currency.

And until a crypto coin goes from investment to a common currency, it's going to act like an investment. And last I checked, investments aren't exactly doing too well.

As I see it, crypto is more akin to Junk Bonds or penny stocks.

 

[PEnnn]

What's the value behind dollar, again? I can exchange it back to gold, right...? right...?

Well, for one, it hasn't dropped in value like a 1000% in a few months!!

You can take that to the crapto banks. Oh, they're bankrupt, never mind.

 

[Kam7r]

Now this is the kind of winter I like

 

[Bl00dyMinded]

Yeah BTC has done this before... We have heard it before. I'd buy at $5k let it go up and cash out. Win win. We all know its going to bounce back up once the economy goes up.

 

[Uncle Al]

A looser is still a looser, no matter how many times it stages a come back ......

 

[umbala]

How many times has the death of BTC been declared over the years and it's always come back to new ATHs and adoption?
Interesting.

BTC has never been declared dead, so I don't know what you're smoking. All they've been saying is that crypto will keep losing value. Lo and behold, that's exactly what's happening. The only people beating their chests and claiming BTC will always recover are the goofballs still looking to make a quick buck from the roller coaster value of BTC. But that little get rich quick scheme has fizzled out. All the scammers are trying to pump the value of BTC by doing tons of fake trades, but it no longer has the effect it once had. If you think BTC is going to make a come back I suggest investing everything you have in it right now. You gotta buy the dip, right? Let's see how that works out for you.

 

[umbala]

Bitcoin has been declared dead, unusable or dying nearly 500 times in various papers.

https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/

NO ONE has declared Bitcoin dead, but everything else you said is 100% true. It *IS* unusable, unstable, and dying. It's not dead and it probably won't be for a long time, because too big fish have money tied up in it they will keep trying to artificially inflate its value, but it's not working as well as it used to now that lots of rats are leaving the sinking ship.

 

[umbala]

What's the value behind dollar, again? I can exchange it back to gold, right...? right...?

The value behind the dollar is the American economy (around $25 trillion), you know, goods, services, etc.

What's the value behind Bitcoin again? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. The only way you can make money from Bitcoin is to find an even bigger sucker than yourself who's willing to pay more than you did. Once you run out of suckers the value collapses, which is what's happening now.

 

[umbala]

This is somehow an argument for supporting crypto? Like @captaincranky said with Gold, you can still buy almost anything with $. Try that with crypto and its mad hourly value swings.

Yeah, if you try to buy something with crypto right this second (good luck) by the time the transaction goes through and gets verified the value of it might drop 20%. Name any other currency, stock, commodity, etc. that's equally volatile.