Why This Is the Worst Crypto Winter Ever
11 133Bitcoin has fallen roughly 44% from its October peak, and while the drawdown isn't crypto's deepest ever on a percentage basis, Bloomberg's Odd Lots newsletter lays out a case that this is the industry's worst winter yet. The macro backdrop was supposed to favor Bitcoin: public confidence in the dollar is shaky, the Trump administration has been crypto-friendly, and fiat currencies are under perceived stress globally. Yet gold, not Bitcoin, has been the safe haven of choice.
The "we're so early" narrative is dead -- crypto ETFs exist, barriers to entry are zero, and the online community that once rallied holders through downturns has largely hollowed out. Institutional adoption arrived but hasn't lifted existing tokens like ETH or SOL; Wall Street cares about stablecoins and tokenization, not the coins themselves. AI is pulling both talent and miners toward data centers. Quantum computing advances threaten Bitcoin's encryption. And MicroStrategy and other Bitcoin treasury companies, once steady buyers during the bull run, are now large holders who may eventually become forced sellers.
11 comments
Grifters moved on (Score: 5, Insightful)
by EldoranDark ( 10182303 ) on Friday February 06, 2026 @05:34AM (#65972118)
Have you seen the RAM prices lately?
Re:Grifters moved on (Score: 5, Insightful)
by gtall ( 79522 ) on Friday February 06, 2026 @07:44AM (#65972324)
It isn't just RAM. Speculation is now in overdrive in just about all markets. Pick one.....precious metals, betting on whether the Squeaker of the House has no balls (spoiler: he doesn't), the next election for dog catcher, etc. Too many people want quick riches without working for them. They see someone getting rewarded this way, so they figure they can do it too. See casinos as to why this not a life plan.
Still overvalued (Score: 5, Insightful)
by jonbryce ( 703250 ) on Friday February 06, 2026 @05:40AM (#65972128)
For those, like me, who are predicting The Meltdown, this is not it, it is just a bull trap.
Previously it was overvalued by 100%, it is still overvalued by 100%.
Re:Still overvalued (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Morromist ( 1207276 ) on Friday February 06, 2026 @07:00AM (#65972236)
Crypto culture is dying. It wasn't much of a culture to begin with, just a bunch of morons who were pumping thin air, but they were excited - they had dreams! They all hated wallstreet and institutions, which excluded them, or so they felt. They were going to show the world! Well, the world was impressed with the amount of money they poured into bitcon and their old enemies from the institiutions showed up and began to take over - and the whole thing became massively awash with husksters and lies and trainwrecks to the point that its synonomous with a scam now.
But the true belivers are going to hang on for the rest of their lives pumping crypto. The pumps may get smaller and smaller and the bags they hold may get heavier and heavier, but I don't think they'll give up until they're in the grave and their grandchildren will be wondering why they inhereted a quadrillion snotcoins. So I don't see a 100% destruction of bitcoin for at least a few decades.
Re:Still overvalued (Score: 5, Funny)
by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Friday February 06, 2026 @07:29AM (#65972280)
Perhaps now is the winter of our Cyrpto sense?
Re:Still overvalued (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Rei ( 128717 ) on Friday February 06, 2026 @08:27AM (#65972468)
Scamming is so baked into crypto culture that crypto fans commonly blame the victims for being dumb enough to get caught up in a scam or having their wallet stolen, rather than blaming the criminal or organized the scam. The notion of scam protection (a key part of current financial systems, from credit card fraud rollbacks to bank account insurance) is entirely alien in the crypto world.
UNLESS:
The little guy in the crypto world can get scammed endlessly and it's their fault. But the whales, it's different rules for them. Take The DAO. When a bug led to them getting ripped off, they literally forked the ETH blockchain to make them whole again. Nobody will ever fork the blockchain for you, but they'll do it for the whales.
It's the existing economics dynamics, yet so vastly works. And it's a dystopian version of democracy as well - no longer "one person, one vote", but open oligarchy, where the more you own, the more voting power you have. Linearly, expressly, and proudly.
Might as well invest in tulips (Score: 5, Insightful)
by eggstasy ( 458692 ) on Friday February 06, 2026 @05:57AM (#65972152)
Crypto is useless. Do I really need to remind anyone that crypto is useless?
There is no specific need for bitcoin in the world, it's a solution looking for a problem.
If I had a bitcoin, I couldn't do anything with it other than sit on it and pray that it's worth more some day, but still, in order to derive concrete utility from it I would have to first get rid of it and convert to real money instead.
It's a very formidable waste of resources, akin to growing tulips instead of something useful.
You can't eat tulips. Well even with tulips they might be edible but you could probably grow a lot of potatoes for all the work you dedicate into cultivating a rare tulip.
Re:Might as well invest in tulips (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Sique ( 173459 ) on Friday February 06, 2026 @06:03AM (#65972158)
To be more precise: The value of fiat money is that you can pay your taxes with it. Further more, you can pay all debts with fiat money. Whenever you owe someone something of value, you can always pay your way out of it. That's why it is called legal tender - the law recognizes all payments performed with legal tender.
Re:Might as well invest in tulips (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Computershack ( 1143409 ) on Friday February 06, 2026 @07:58AM (#65972360)
What makes me laugh about the crypto advocates is how they are constantly concerned about how much it's worth in FIAT money. The reason why is obvious, because you can't do shit with crypto-currencies beyond trying to convince someone to pay more in FIAT for it than you paid.
Re:Might as well invest in tulips (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Computershack ( 1143409 ) on Friday February 06, 2026 @08:01AM (#65972372)
Crypto is NOT useless, it is a currency where anyone can pay anyone,
A currency that fluctuates against FIAT currencies as much as crypto does at the speed it does is not useful as a method of payment which is why no legitimate companies or people with a functioning brain accept it as payment. Can I pay my rent with it? No. Can I buy my gas with it? No. Can I buy my grocery shopping with it? No. The only places it's accepted as payment for goods or services is for dodgy illegal stuff like drugs and kiddy porn on the dark web.
Burning the planet for magic Internet beads (Score: 5, Informative)
by Mirnotoriety ( 10462951 ) on Friday February 06, 2026 @06:54AM (#65972220)
“Bitcoin mining uses as much electricity per year as a mediumsized country; estimates for recent years are on the order of 150–170 TWh annually, comparable to Poland and around 0.4–0.6% of global electricity.” ref [unu.edu]
“A UNlinked study found that 67% of Bitcoin’s mining electricity in 2020–2021 came from fossil fuels, with coal alone providing about 45%, and mining emitted roughly 86 million tons of CO in that twoyear period.” ref [unu.edu]
“One analysis of U.S. mining found that just 34 large U.S. mines used 32.3 TWh in a single year (mid2022 to mid2023), 33% more than Los Angeles, with 85% of the extra electricity from fossil fuel plants.” ref [nih.gov]