Aliens TLDR

“I think you can hit a bottom in crypto a lot faster than you can in traditional markets,” Joseph Hickey, BlockFi’s global head of trading, said in an interview.

“It looks very possible that bitcoin will incur losses in 2022,” Tony Nyman, FX fundamentals manager at Informa Global Markets, noting that the cryptocurrency kicked off the year trading close to $48,000.

Ben McMillan, founder and chief investment officer at IDX Digital Assets, compared the recent consolidation in the crypto market to the dot.com bust in the early 2000s, saying that it is “ultimately good for the space.” “It reminds me of back in the 2000s, the selloff of both Pets.com and Amazon.com.

“I think the key for long term price appreciation is, we need to see a risk bid come back into markets,” McMillan said.

I think they need to see language out of the Fed that helps inform expectations around when they might pare back on the tightening.” If the risk appetite comes back, McMillan said he wouldn’t be surprised to see bitcoin “getting back to even for the year, maybe even a little bit positive.” Investors are also watching Ethereum’s “Merge,” a major upgrade that will transition the blockchain from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, a consensus mechanism that is less energy-intensive.

I don’t think investors should bank on that,” according to McMillan.

We are already seeing ourselves as a fund looking at popular projects and saying, you know what, not at at this valuation,” said Gupta.