The Canadian-Russian cryptocurrency billionaire, who co-founded Ethereum, believes that another bear market could actually benefit the broader industry
As it seems increasingly likely that cryptocurrencies are in the early stages of another crypto winter, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin chooses to look on the bright side.
In his recent interview with Bloomberg, the eminent Canadian-Russian programmer says that those members of the industry who are actually building things would “welcome” another bear market. Falling prices will be able to flush out speculative excess in the crypto space, according to Buterin:
They welcome the bear market because when there are these long periods where prices go up tremendously as it does — that obviously makes a lot of people happy — but it also tends to invite a lot of speculation to very short term caution.
Buterin predicts that a lot of existing cryptocurrency projects could fail during a brutal bear market, and only the sustainable ones will be able to survive it.
The cryptocurrency market has suffered a steep decline over the past few months, with Bitcoin plunging to $32,950 on January 24. down 44.56% from its record high.
Ethereum is performing even worse, currently trading 46.06% below its all-time high.
Buterin’s words echo recent comments made by Tim O’Reilly, who is believed to have popularized the term “Web 2.0.” As reported by U.Today, O’Reilly recently compared the current state of the cryptocurrency market to the dot-com frenzy in the late 90s, claiming that “Web3” would only be able to emerge after another crypto bust. The tech guru bemoaned massive valuations in the cryptocurrency industry, which he believes are reminiscent of the Pets.com era.
Tens of millions of dollars spent on Super Bowl cryptocurrency advertisements have gone through memories of the dotcom bubble. Many skeptics believe that crypto companies could meet the same fate as internet companies whose stock crashed in the early 2000s.
