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