Possible ‘Crypto Winter’ Chills Investors as Bitcoin Continues Fall

The winter season starts this month, but bitcoin investors are worried it could be joined by a “crypto winter.”

The ongoing downturn in the cryptocurrency market is worsening, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday (Dec. 1). Bitcoin, the most popular crypto token, fell more than 6% Monday, its biggest one-day drop since March. It’s part of an ongoing downturn weeks after the coin hit a record high.

The selloff has affected other forms of crypto and hurt stocks tied to the digital asset sector, such as Coinbase and Strategy, the report said.

Patrick Horsman, chief investment officer at crypto treasury company BNB Plus, said investors are scaling back their risk exposure amid pessimism about the market and the economy, according to the report.

“I think we could see Bitcoin get all the way back to $60,000,” Horsman said, per the report. “We don’t think the pain is over.”

Crypto prices have been on a rollercoaster ride since the industry’s start, with past “crypto winters” seeing Bitcoin and other tokens lose up to 80% of their value before recovering. Past winters were invariably triggered in part by investor concerns about fraud, the report said.

Meanwhile, Strategy, which pivoted from making software to hoarding bitcoin, announced Monday that it raised $1.44 billion through a stock sale to help make sure it can cover future dividend and debt-interest payments, according to the report.

In a related development, S&P Global Ratings last week lowered its assessment of Tether’s USDT, the largest stablecoin, moving its view of USDT’s ability to keep its U.S. dollar peg from “constrained” to “weak,” the agency’s lowest rating.

Against this backdrop, PYMNTS last month examined the use of cryptocurrency as a tool for retail payments.

“Most retailers treat crypto not as a headline opportunity but as a long-tail enhancement,” PYMNTS reported Nov. 25. “They don’t expect crypto spending to dominate. They don’t build marketing campaigns around it. Instead, crypto acceptance functions like PayPal or Klarna once did in their early days. An incremental option might convert a few extra shoppers, especially those buying internationally or operating outside traditional banking rails.”