Crypto market recovery will be slow, says execs

Bitcoin (BTC/USD) has reclaimed the zone around $23,000, which looks like developing into a key support level with price above the 200-week moving average. 

However, like Ethereum (ETH/USD) and many top cryptocurrencies, ranged movement still means potential declines to support levels – $20,000 for instance, remains a psychological buffer zone for BTC.

But are bulls out of the woods yet? According to two crypto executives who shared their perspective during a panel discussion at Asia Wealth Summit, that’s a no – not really.

Crypto market outlook – its still bearish

The crypto market crash following Bitcoin’s peak around $69,000 in November last year saw over $2 trillion wiped off total  market cap as sell-off intensified in 2022. 

But while recovery has seen the market cap break above $1.1 trillion again, the collapse of several crypto companies amid bear market crash has added to the crypto winter pain. And the exit of money from the sector could see recovery take time.

Nanda Ivens, Chief Marketing Officer, Tokocrypto told Bloomberg’s Joanna Ossinger:

I’ve spoken to a lot of analysts and I think the market is going to kind of be a little bit like this for at least another year. The recovery is going to be slow because there are geopolitical issues at large, and in previous bear markets, you know, these geopolitical factors were not at play.”

According to him, inflation, war and other geopolitical factors coming into play will probably hinder recovery. He noted that enthusiasm for crypto remains, highlighted by the exponential growth in users and coins over the past two years. 

An example is in Asia, specifically, Indonesia that has seen crypto user numbers jump from about 2 million to 15 million in that period.

But that doesn’t mean that, you know, the market is going to recover sooner because of that,” he observed.

What could catalyse the next market cycle?

Crypto needs new money, new innovations, said Rich Teo, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Paxos, Asia. Like Ivens, Teo also believes the market will struggle in coming months.

“There was a time that geopolitical tensions and all this stuff was actually good for crypto,” he noted, but said this relationship appears to currently be inverted. He does not see more new money coming into the space, which needs to happen (and coupled with new innovations) to catalyse the next market cycle.

I think with what’s going on, there will be more deleveraging of our crypto and with the lack of new money and new projects in this environment, there’ll be less use cases and a lot of tokens with promise of new technology probably would not deliver.”

The crypto market is therefore likely to see fresh downsides over “the next twelve months,” Teo added.

For him, what helps the market recover a few months down the line is “new innovation, new technology [in] a new area that would bring in a net new group of users and then net new money into the industry.”

That outlook isn’t so clear at the moment and so a crypto market struggle that extends into early next year is possible, he concluded.