The revolutionary technologies to have emerged during this bull run – DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, layer 2s and, yes, stablecoins – have shown themselves to be largely unready for primetime.” “Cheap money has dried up and the appetite for risk is marginal. “Unlike previous crypto winters, this one looks set to unfold against a much changed macroeconomic background,” read the memo. But then a “crypto winter” followed for two years.Ĭoinjar’s assessment is that the new 2022 winter is different. Similar to the spectacular gains seen over the COVID-19 pandemic, 2017 was a massive year of gains. “Recent trends show that the amount being stored in DeFi protocols is rapidly decreasing and USDC is being cashed out for real USD.” Why this winter might turn into an ice ageĬrypto last went through a bear market over 2018 to early 2020. The flight of capital out of digital assets is not just seen in the devaluation of volatile cryptocurrencies. Even the burst to US$69,000 in November now looks like it was designed to engineer exit liquidity for the big players.” “Since then, monthly exchange users have been trending down and people have stopped Googling crypto. “It’s all so clear in retrospect: May 2021 was the end of the bull run,” read the memo. In the month of May alone, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) has lost more than 26% of its value in Australian dollar terms.Īccording to a Coinjar memo to clients on Wednesday night, we are well and truly in a bear market that started exactly a year ago. Cryptocurrencies have suffered from a brutal sell-off the past few months, but the last fortnight has been especially bad for investors.