What’s next in the crypto crash?

The crypto crash continues apace – but has it reached a bottom?

Cryptochaos

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that crypto markets have been roiled by disruption and volatility. From a historic high of around $67,000 last November, Bitcoin fell beneath $18,000 this Saturday in a market increasingly dominated by extreme fear.

It has since recovered, but Bitcoin’s trajectory has been all in one direction over the last few months and it’s having a huge impact on the crypto ecosystem. Crypto exchange platforms, such as Celsius, have paused transactions for several consecutive days, while Solana-based protocol Solend voted to temporarily take control of its largest whale account, with deposits totaling over $170m worth of SOL, to ensure its own safety. So much for ‘decentralized finance’.

Institutional risk

According to crypto monitoring site, Watcher.Guru, 72 of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization are down more than 90% from their all-time highs, and it’s having a huge impact on businesses and platforms working in the space. But with crypto markets staging a little bit of a rally over the last 48 hours, have we reached the bottom?

Crypto bulls have been quick to point out that each time crypto markets crash, they return to historic highs all over again. And there’s a whole lot of truth in that; in 2011, Bitcoin fell below $20, in 2015, it fell below $200, in 2017 it fell below $2,000 and now it’s fallen below $20,000. So, is this all part of the bigger crypto master plan?

The only condition is that each of these recoveries took place in a low inflation, low-interest environment – something current market conditions are absolutely not. Whether, or when, crypto markets recover will be a big test for the future solidity of crypto markets.