Crypto Winter IS Coming! 🥶

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Right then, Coinbase – those chaps who sell you the digital whatsits – have peered into their crystal ball (or, more likely, a spreadsheet) and muttered darkly about a potential crypto winter. Not the kind with actual snow, mind you. More the sort where your digital tulips wither and die, leaving you with naught but the faint scent of regret and a very empty wallet. 🌷💀

Apparently, the total worth of all those cryptocoiny-things (excluding the big daddy, Bitcoin) has taken a tumble, plummeting to a mere $950 billion. Which, let’s face it, is only enough to buy a small island nation or two. This represents a rather alarming 41% drop from its peak back in December 2024, when everyone was convinced they were going to be sipping cocktails on the moon.🍹🚀 Now, they’re more likely to be sipping instant noodles in a bedsit.

Venture Capital Bailing on Crypto

The pointy-heads at Coinbase blame the usual suspects: global economic headwinds (which sound rather like a particularly nasty hangover) and tariffs, which are basically taxes dressed up in fancy clothes. These things, they say, have scared away the money, like a flock of pigeons scattering at the sight of a small child with a bag of chips. 🐦

Venture capital, that is the stuff what fuels the dreams of altcoin, is drying up faster than a puddle in the Discworld’s desert. Funding remains 50-60% below the giddy heights of the 2021-22 bull cycle. The gravy train, it seems, has run out of gravy. 🚂

To add insult to injury, Bitcoin and the COIN50 index (which tracks the top 50 tokens by market cap) have both fallen below their 200-day moving averages. Now, I don’t pretend to understand what that means, but apparently, it’s a Very Bad Thing. Like finding out your favourite pub has run out of beer. 🍺

David Duong, Coinbase’s global head of research (a title that sounds far more important than it probably is), reckons all this doom and gloom is a sign of things to come. He suggests taking a “defensive stance,” which I assume means hiding under the duvet with a large bar of chocolate. 🍫 While there’s a glimmer of hope for things getting better in mid-to-late Q2 2025, the overall picture remains as clear as mud.

“For now, the challenges of the current macro environment require greater caution.”

‘No Demand, No Rally’

Ecoinometrics, another bunch of crypto-gurus, echo these concerns. They point to weak demand, tighter financial conditions, and the Fed not showing any signs of a change of heart. Which, according to them, is about as bullish as a soggy biscuit. 🥮

ETF flows (whatever they are) reflect this, with money flowing out faster than water through a sieve. 💦 Net flows over the past 30 days are hovering around zero, which is basically the financial equivalent of shrugging your shoulders. Short-term upside remains limited, apparently. Which means don’t expect to be buying that yacht anytime soon. 🛥️

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2025-04-20 15:28