Bitcoin January Loss is Worst Start to Year Since 2018 ‘Crypto Winter’

Bitcoin is coming to the end of a tumultuous month, with losses in January putting it on track for its worst start to a year since the start of the 2018 ‘crypto winter.’ According to Bloomberg data, the largest cryptocurrency by market value has only had approximately a dozen up days this month, with the rest of the time being spent in a downtrend. Other digital assets have fallen as well, with the second-largest token, Ether, down approximately 30 percent since the end of December. Bitcoin fell below $33,000 in January from a high of about $69,000 less than three months earlier, as part of a broader selloff in risk assets amid growing expectations that the Federal Reserve would hike rates soon as it reverts to its ultra-accommodative policy settings. From Bitcoin and memecoins to publicly traded crypto exchanges and miners, the crypto ecosystem has been hammered hard. Troy Gayeski, chief market strategist at FS Investments, said over the phone, “Crypto is a very volatile asset class — and I hope that everyone investing in that market is aware of the volatility potential.” “It’s a much trickier climate now than it was six, twelve, or eighteen months ago when everything was ‘green-light go.'” “Now it’s a ‘yellow-light caution,'” she says. Bitcoin dropped as much as 2.9 percent to roughly $36,680 on Monday before recouping losses. It has now dropped more than 18 percent in a month, the worst start to a year since 2018’s 29 perce...