What a “CRYPTO WINTER” is like

What is a crypto winter like? Well,
first of all, are we in one right now?
The answer is probably, but you don’t
know until the rearview mirror uh when
you’re looking back. Uh if the price
rebounds immediately, uh then people
will say, well, it was just a bull
market dip, an up market dip that
happened to be more severe than usual.
If it drags on for a series of months or
longer, then yes, this is a crypto
winter. Although, all I care about is
Bitcoin, not crypto. Okay. So, h what is
that like and how does it compare for
example to 2022 and 2018? So, first of
all, this one is not nearly as bad. Uh
the reason I ramped up my advocacy for
Bitcoin in the second half of 2022 and
beyond was because it felt like after
2022, the future Bitcoin bare markets
were going to be much less bad. Um,
prior to that, even though I owned
Bitcoin since 2017, Bitcoin was so
volatile uh, prior to the introduction
of the Bitcoin ETFs in January of 2024,
Bitcoin was so volatile uh, that there
was just I was concerned that anybody I
advocated to Bitcoin to probably
couldn’t handle it. So even though the
returns were higher if you bought
Bitcoin in 2017 2018 honestly most
people could not handle the kind of
volatility that came with those returns
which was regular 30 or 40% draw downs
and the biggest draw down in 2022 of
77.5%.
Now 77.5%
was much worse than it would otherwise
have been. it was uh driven lower and
lower and lower by uh the bankruptcies
of numerous companies that had nothing
to do with Bitcoin. Uh they were all
crypto companies that had done exotic
borrowing and gotten overleveraged and
basically blew up. But it was a bunch of
them. It was BlockFi, Three Arrows
Capital, which is called 3AC, uh
Celsius, Voyager, Terara Luna, um the
Terra Luna stable coin, uh oh, there was
a bunch of them. I mean, just you could
Google it, but there was like, I don’t
know, a ridiculously large number of
companies that all went bankrupt in
2022, driving the price lower and lower
and lower and lower, ultimately down to
17,600, which everybody thought was the
bottom, until FTX blew up. So, the
cherry on top of 2022 was FTX blows up
and then suddenly uh you know, we go to
a new lower low of 15,500. The lowest
low in two uh 2022 is 15,500
which was today’s price is more than
quadruple uh that low and even the low
the recent low is almost quadruple the
low back from 2022. So what is a crypto
winter like? One lots of negative news
everybody adjusting their price targets
down headlines everywhere saying you
know crypto is dead blah blah blah. Now
in this case it’s not nearly as bad as
in the past. In the past in 22 222 there
were tons of news articles saying you
know Bitcoin was over for good it was
dead you know crypto was dead you know
nice knowing you good riddens blah blah
blah which is what always happens you
know right at when when things are near
the bottom everybody’s predicting it’s
going to get much worse just like when
things are near the top everybody’s
predicting you know the stratosphere and
going to the moon so 2022 was a lot
worse uh 2018 was much more of a grind I
mean just grinding grinding grind
grinding lower, lower, grinding,
grinding, grinding, lower, lower, which
lasted most of 2018 and most of u 2019
and part of 2020. There was ups, there
was downs, there was dips, but man, that
was a just a ridiculously brutal time to
have to hold on to Bitcoin was 2018 and
2019. I should have bought a lot more
Bitcoin then, but it was my first crypto
winter. It was my first Bitcoin bare
market. And the first Bitcoin bare
market you go through, you tend to not
buy more Bitcoin because you’re scared.
You think it’s, you know, this is the
last one. You think it’s, you know, the
whole industry is done and you happen to
catch it right at the tail end and
you’re the unlucky soul who, you know,
bought bought it right before it went
down for good. That’s what everybody
thinks in their first crypto winter,
their first Bitcoin bare market. So, uh,
a huge benefit of going through this
one, assuming you don’t puke and vomit
all of your coins out onto the
marketplace, is that it has an
incredible, uh, effect of just hardening
you up, battle testing you, uh, so that
the next time the price dips, you just
don’t care because you’re like, I’ve
seen this before. I’ve been here before.
I’ve seen this movie. I know how this
ends. Uh, so you can make it through
this one. And you know, 60% chance the
$60,000 low of earlier this month was
the lowest low or within the last month
or two, whenever that was, $60,000. I
guess it was this month. It was few
couple weeks ago, few weeks ago. Um 60%
chance that was the low and we grind
sideways for a series of months and then
just climb higher. Um but that also
leaves a 40% chance that we undercut
60,000 ever so slightly. You know, who
knows what that is. you know, one or two
percentage points, something
ridiculously small, and bounce from
there, which is certainly a possibility
as well. But again, the big benefit is
once you’ve been through one, they all
feel the same. They all look the same.
It’s all the same stuff. It’s all the
same news headlines. It’s all the same
reply guys on Facebook telling you
you’re an idiot and that things are
going to zero and all that sort of
stuff. They’re all They’re all the same.
Again, this one will be significantly
more muted and already is as a result of
the Bitcoin ETFs which are a massive
stabilizer on the price because
institutions uh do not have the same
sort of fear and pan panic than
individuals do. In the past, a larger
percentage of the Bitcoin was owned by
individuals who are subject to
individual whims and emotions. And
individuals are notoriously bad for
buying things when they’re expensive and
then puking them out onto the market
when they’re cheap, which is obviously
the opposite of what makes money. Um, so
as long as you do not vomit your coins
out at the bottom of the price market
right now or in anything in this
ballpark, then uh you’re going to be
good and you’re going to feel great
about having lived through it. You, of
course, will wish you had bought a lot
more Bitcoin. Everyone does. Uh but
almost nobody does in their first crypto
winter or their first Bitcoin bare
market, which those two go to together.
The the terms are interchangeable
because if Bitcoin’s down, everything
else in crypto is down because almost
everything else in crypto is junk and
trash and Bitcoin is the one real thing.
So if the one real thing is down, all
the trash is way down. And then
obviously sometimes when the real thing
is up, some of the uh other stuff chases
along. But uh not so much recently. I
mean, even when Bitcoin was setting new
all-time highs, a lot of ridiculous,
stupid tokens were, you know, still down
significantly from their all-time highs.
But anyway, in a Bitcoin bare market, it
is almost always paired with a crypto
winter. So, I’m going to use the two
terms interchangeably. Um, but anyway,
once you get through it, you’ll feel
amazing that you kept your your
breakfast down. It’s like you uh you
know, you went to Universal Studios, you
rode the Veloci the Veloca Coaster,
which is like their, you know, Jurassic
Park roller coaster. It inverts you. It,
you know, does all that sort of stuff.
And you’ll be glad you kept your
breakfast down. You didn’t puke your
coins up. You didn’t vomit your Bitcoin
all over the marketplace when the price
was low. And once you do it once, you
feel like you can do it an unlimited
number of times. And it doesn’t phase
you anymore. And in your second Bitcoin
bare market, you end up buying a lot
more Bitcoin. So the people most of the
people who are buying Bitcoin right now
this is not their first Bitcoin bare
market. Again the reason is because if
it is your first Bitcoin bare market it
is scary. People tend to panic at the
lows and when you’re panicked you’re not
in buy mode. But once you’ve been
through this once before you’re buying
it all the way down. You’re like, “Hey,
you know, as you get to the end of the
movie and everybody’s worried that the
main character is going to die off and
you’ve already seen the movie before and
you know that’s not the case and
everybody’s betting, you know, higher
and higher percentages that the main
character dies, you’re like, “Well, this
is stupid. I can make a ton of money
just betting that the main character
doesn’t die because I’ve already seen
this movie before.” And so, you know,
the the the more ridiculous prices get
and the dumber things get, the more
you’re like, “Yeah, okay. I’ll take
that. Sure. Some $68,000 Bitcoin. Hook
me up. You know, if everybody wants to
be irrational and stupid and predict
that the main character is going to die
here and therefore sell me Bitcoin at
68,000, well, heck, I know the main
character doesn’t die in this movie. So,
I’ll take $68,000 Bitcoin and cash it in
when it becomes clear to everybody that
the main character did not die in the
movie. So, that’s that’s what, you know,
bare markets are like, but the ones in
the past were much worse than this one.
Um, again, I mean, there was just
massive amounts of fraud from FTX,
Celsius, Voyager, BlackFi, Three Arrows
Capital, Luna, Terra. I mean, all of
that is just in massive amounts of
fraud. And all of the Bitcoin that they
bought with all of that fraud, borrowed
money, re rehypothecated loans, all of
that got dumped on the market all at one
time. When each of them went belly up,
they went bankrupt. They liquidated
their holdings. Bankrupt, liquidated,
liquidated, liquidated, liquidated.
every time they got liquidated, they
dumped whatever Bitcoin or other assets
they held, they dumped them on the
market and uh which obviously creates a
cascade. So, we don’t have that problem
this time. Uh but the price is still
down. The price is down just due to
malaise. Uh it’s down because people are
just, you know, gold gold had a once in
a generation run, so everybody feels
like they missed that. Um you know, it’s
just a bunch of dumb reasons. Uh which
means, you know, it’s a good time to buy
Bitcoin. But the bottom line of all of
this is they’re all the same. I’ve seen
this movie before. After you’ve seen
this movie, you will have seen the same
movie before. If you have the
conviction, buy more Bitcoin. If this is
your second bare market or your second
crypto winter, uh then you are probably
buying a lot of Bitcoin right now
because you have seen this movie before
just like I have. Now, in my case, I’m
100% allocated. I have 100% Bitcoin.
There is no more US dollars I could
possibly buy Bitcoin with. There just
isn’t. I don’t have anymore. Um, so I’m
100% allocated and I feel great about
it. So yeah, when Bitcoin’s down 45%, my
entire net worth is down 45%. And I feel
great about that, too. I mean, no other
way I’d rather live right now, uh, or
ever because I own the number one asset
in the world, and it’s 100% of my
portfolio, which feels great. Uh, so
anyway, I am here to help you in your
journey. Uh, the the the saying goes,
the uh, you know, the night is always
darkest before the dawn. That is true.
Um, and it’s it’s the same here. You
know, you you know you’re at the bottom
when the headlines are the worst and the
sentiment is the worst and everybody’s
predicting lower prices and absolute
insanity and everybody’s calling the end
and you feel the worst. Whenever you
feel the worst about your Bitcoin
investment, whether that’s because the
price dipped or what’s called time pain,
which means it just grinds and grinds
and grinds sideways. And you know, maybe
you were okay with $68,000 today, but
what if I we grind up or down and up and
down and up and down for two or three
months? Are you still okay? Because that
is time pain. That’s not price pain. The
price is just bouncing around. But time
pain is when the price is, you know,
lower than you want and it just grinds
and grinds and grinds. But guess what?
It does that with every stock. You know,
every asset does that. All the
magnificent seven stocks, the highest
performing assets in the United States,
you know, in recent decades, Amazon,
Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla,
Facebook, every one of them has gone
through periods of weeks, well, not even
weeks, months or years where they behave
just like Bitcoin. They drop, they
grind, they drop, they grind, they drop,
they they grind, people sell, and
ultimately people sell right near the
bottom, right before it keeps going up.
Now, the other thing to know about bare
markets is although you just like you
can’t tell you’re in one until you’re,
you know, until you’re basically mostly
out of it because you can only tell in
the rearview mirror, the same isn’t true
on bull markets. Bull markets means up
markets when things are positive and the
price is rising. If 60,000 was the
bottom, which you know, good chance it
was, 60% chance according to James
Check. that was the bottom, then that
means we’re up $7,000 a coin, $8,000 a
coin as of this morning at 68,000. Uh
that means we’re up. But guess what? It
will not feel that way until we’re up a
lot. So just like uh in the future,
people will measure if that was the low,
they will measure the bull market,
meaning the up market, they will measure
it from that low forward. But what they
they will not take into account is that
the first multiple months of that did
not feel like a bull market. It felt
like a bare market because everybody
feels like we’re still going to go
lower. Just like at the top, everybody
feels like you’re going to keep going
higher. Well, at the bottom, everybody
feels like you’re going to keep going
lower. And it’s not until the price
definitively
goes significantly higher than the
bottom that the mood shifts. And so,
that’ll be a big thing to look forward
to is when the mood shifts, because
you’ll feel a lot better. Everybody will
feel better. Everybody will wish they
had bought more Bitcoin, which always
happens. Uh but when that mood shifts,
that mood typically does not shift until
multiple months after the actual bottom
because for that multiple months,
everybody’s just waiting for the second
shoe to fall inevitably. And if there is
a second shoe, they’re waiting for a
third shoe. And if there’s a third shoe,
they’re waiting for a fourth shoe to
fall. I mean, it’s just it’s just always
the case. Um so anyway, hang in there.
Don’t, you know, vomit your coins, throw
up your coins at the bottom. We’re near
the bottom, you know, whether we touch
the bottom or we’re close to it, we’re
near the bottom. Bitcoin’s on sale. Buy
more if you can. Hold on to it for as
long as conceivably possible. This bare
market, you know, Bitcoin bare market,
crypto winter is not near as bad as ones
in the past. Um, we’ve all seen this
movie before. It’s going to be fine.
You’re going to be fine. Hang tight.
You’ll be glad you did. And in the
future, you’ll wish you had bought more
Bitcoin, just like we all did, just like
I did in my first Bitcoin bare market
and crypto winter back in 2018. I wish
now I had bought way more Bitcoin. I
wish I had. I didn’t because it was the
first time. And the first time you see a
movie when everybody’s telling you the
main character might die and you’ve
never seen the movie before, you’re
afraid they might. And it’s not only
until you get to the end of the movie
and the main character, you know, is
just fine, that you’re like, “Oh, well,
I wish I had bet more that that was the
outcome, which is what always happens.”
So, let me know if I can be of
assistance. Message me on Facebook
Messenger. Just make sure it’s one of my
real accounts. There are fake accounts
floating around from time to