Should you buy the bitcoin crash? Even some crypto bulls are saying 'Not yet.'
Bitcoin has been struggling this year.
The market's biggest cryptocurrency is down roughly 70% from November highs. Actions from the Federal Reserve and fears of a recession have placed consistent pressure on financial markets, and cryptocurrencies have been among the most challenged asset classes this year.
Over the last week — as Bitcoin fell through $23,000, then $22,000, then $21,000 — Yahoo Finance Live has spoken with several investors about buying at these lower prices, and none of them said now was the time to buy.
“Unfortunately, at these levels I’m not a buyer,” Marc LoPresti, managing director at The Strategic Funds, told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “In the crypto fund that I advise, we’ve been in 80 percent cash for a while now, just because of these choppy waters.”
LoPresti said he had been hearing from some traders who said they’d “back up the truck” if Bitcoin fell to $19,000, but he was skeptical: “We’ll see.”
The Bitcoin-futures-based Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF is down more than 50 percent this year, about in line with returns of the underlying currency. Valkyrie CEO Leah Wald, who also holds crypto personally, said she’s not optimistic in the short term.
“It’s historically true that we have weathered these types of storms, but we are firmly in a bear market now — it never feels good,” she said. On a “short time horizon, I’m very nervous about these markets and I think we’re in for a lot of pain, for the next few months for sure, potentially longer.”
LoPresti, Wald and others called the current period a “flushing” of the system for crypto.
Anastasia Amoroso, chief investment strategist at iCapital, told Yahoo Finance that the current crash is healthy: “It’s kind of a good cleansing process we’re going through, we need to weed out the froth and we need to focus on the applications that have utility, that have an end use, and those are the ones that will survive this.”
She, like the other investors, still thinks Bitcoin has value.
“Bitcoin in particular – yes of course it’s under pressure – because it can’t be construed as an inflation hedge anymore," Amoroso said. "What it’s trading like instead is unprofitable tech. I don’t think that invalidates Bitcoin. I think there is a price level of support, perhaps it’s $15,000, which is roughly the cost of production.”
When could that support be reached? Wald puts it perhaps in the fourth quarter.
“If you look at medium- and long-term, I am always bullish Bitcoin,” she said. “So I do think there’s always a good bottom and a good buy to be had depending on your time horizon.”
Mark Palmer, managing director and fintech analyst at BTIG, said there’s one important catalyst that would allow Bitcoin and other crypto- and blockchain-related businesses to rebound.
“Once we begin to have a more rational approach with regard to valuation and that some of the fervor associated with the Fed moves begins to calm down," Palmer said, "that will create a baseline off of which crypto and the entire space will be able to bounce.”
Unfortunately for short-term crypto bulls, the central bank is not signaling a slowdown in rate hikes anytime soon.
—
Julie Hyman is the co-anchor of Yahoo Finance Live, weekdays 9am-11am ET. Follow her on Twitter @juleshyman, and read her other stories.
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
Download the Yahoo Finance app for Apple or Android
Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, LinkedIn, and YouTube
