Many of the top digital assets in the cryptocurrency market are down significantly, but some market participants are shrugging it off and focusing on the long game.
The top five cryptocurrencies by market capitalization have fallen 55% or more year to date, according to CoinMarketCap data. The top two, bitcoin and ether, have dropped 56.5% and 68.5%, respectively, during that period.
But Pascal Gauthier, chairman and CEO of Ledger, said during a panel at his company’s Op3n conference in New York City that “this doesn’t feel like a [crypto] bear market.”
“Now, for the macro economy, it’s a bloodbath,” Gauthier added.
For example, Swedish buy now, pay later provider Klarna is considering raising capital at about a $10 billion valuation, down from its mid-2021 valuation of over $45 billion, TechCrunch reported last week. And a number of fintech companies’ values are declining sharply, taking the downturn even harder than most other sectors.
Gauthier also referenced the Nasdaq, which is down 26% year to date. “So there are macro trends that are just impacting everything at a global scale, everywhere,” Gauthier said. “So actually, the [crypto] market is resisting pretty well and the [crypto] market has been impacted by macro events and our own greed.”
In contrast? Longtime bitcoin holder Dan Held, director of growth marketing at crypto exchange Kraken, said during the panel that “this crypto winter is as harsh as the other ones.”
“It’s going to be cold, but I’m still as bullish as ever on bitcoin,” Held said.