The first rule of surviving crypto winter is to unlearn bad habits from the bull market — like chasing quick gains driven by hype or following influencers whose popularity vastly exceeds their expertise.
Many investors come out of bull cycles believing that good technology, real users and solid products will naturally translate into protection in a downturn. While these projects are still a better bet over the long run than a portfolio of vaporware and memecoins, even coins with good fundamentals dive when liquidity disappears and bull posters go into hibernation.
Patience becomes the key to survival.
What crypto winter?
But are we even in a crypto winter, or is this just a lengthy but temporary pullback due to geopolitical uncertainty? Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan believes we’ve been in crypto winter since January 2025, while Bitmine’s Tom Lee argues we are now in the final stages of a “mini-crypto winter.”
The current market downturn didn’t become readily apparent until the flash crash of Oct. 10, when Bitcoin lost 15% in a day. Bitcoin has since recorded five consecutive losing months. March offered some relief by snapping that streak, but the Iran war and surging oil prices have put a lid on risk assets, even if Bitcoin has performed better than macro markets.
Bear markets reshape behavior, filter participants and expose which habits actually hold up when liquidity dries up. For crypto winter rookies, the key is patience and laying the groundwork for the next upswing, according to Annabelle Huang, co-founder and CEO of Altius Labs.
“It is a good time to start learning because you are already getting filtered content from [people who are] committed to this more difficult time and not just here to capitalize when everything is going up,” Huang tells Magazine.
“Even from a builder perspective, I’m not getting inquiries or getting distracted by everyone supposedly wanting to build everything,” she says.
The voices that survive crypto winters
In bull markets, attention often flows to the loudest voices. For investors navigating a downturn, filtering who to listen to becomes part of the survival strategy.
Connor Howe is the CEO and co-founder of cross-chain infrastructure project Enso and has been building in the industry since 2016. To him, the worst advice he has encountered from online crypto gurus is, “Buy the dip, it can’t go lower.”
“I’ve heard that sentence for Bitcoin at $40,000, $20,000 and $15,000. Famous last words every time,” Howe tells Magazine.
Some influencers are incentivized to act against the interests of their own followers, who end up as exit liquidity for paid promotions.
But they aren’t always vampiric. Influencers play an important role in the crypto world. Many users turn to them for information, while projects partner up to tell stories, rally the fans and expand reach.
So influencers are likely here to stay. Howe says the trick to surviving a crypto winter is to listen to the social media voices with battle scars.
“Not the ones who went quiet in 2022 and reappeared in 2024. The ones who were posting technical breakdowns and lessons learned during the worst of it,” Howe says.
“The so-called ‘gurus’ with yachts in their bios are a character in a simulator: possibly entertaining, but don’t build your financial future on their [X] threads and Telegram calls. Instead, listen quietly to those who are still here after multiple winters — they’re the ones with frostbite and wisdom.”
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What survives when the hype dies
In the bull market that preceded the 2022 FTX fiasco, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were crowned as the next big thing, though most are now worthless.
In the subsequent bull market, memecoins took over as the latest crypto casino, though most were worthless to begin with. The memecoin frenzy even drew in celebrities and several world leaders, including US President Donald Trump.
For crypto market participants who follow the industry even when prices are down, crypto winters offer a sneak peek at what may drive the next wave. There’s never a better time to invest in a narrative than before it becomes the focus of…
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