Bitcoin (BTC) has suffered its worst quarterly loss in 11 years: its price and activity on the blockchain have plummeted in the last three months.
In the second quarter ending Thursday, the price of bitcoin fell from about $45,000 at the start of the quarter to trading at $19,884 before midnight Thursday, according to CoinGecko. This represents a loss of 56.2%according to cryptocurrency analytics platform Coinglass.
It is the biggest drop in price since the third quarter of 2011, when BTC fell from $15.40 to $5.03, a loss of over 67% and worse than the bear markets of 2014 and 2018, when the bitcoin price plunged 39.7% and 49.7% in its worst quarters, respectively.
The last quarter saw eight weekly red candles in a row for bitcoin and the month of June saw a drop of over 37%. This is the largest monthly loss since September 2011, when the price fell more than 38.5% in the month.
There are also signs that investors are saving their gunpowder – or have run out of funds – during the bear market. Activity on the blockchain is plummeting as bitcoin’s spot volume – the total amount of coins traded on the blockchain – has dropped more than 58.5% in just nine days.according to a Wednesday analysis from Arcane Research.
But not only the cryptocurrency markets are in crisis. Thanks to high inflation and rising interest rates, the traditional stock market has also been hit, with some calling it the “worst quarter ever” for stocks.
Charlie Bilello, CEO of financial advisory firm Compound Capital Advisors, shared a chart on Twitter showing that The S&P 500 Index was down 20.6% in the first half of 2022, the worst start to the year for the index since 1962, when price returns were -26.5%.
The S&P was down 20.6% in the first half of 2022, the worst start to a year for the index since 1962. $SPX pic.twitter.com/OMcX7yfP5o
— Charlie Billello (@charliebilello) June 30, 2022
The S&P was down 20.6% in the first half of 2022, the worst start to the year for the index since 1962. SPX
Difficult economic conditions have seen a swath of staff layoffs from crypto firms including Gemini, Crypto.com and BlockFi. Cryptocurrency and stock trading platform Bitpanda recently reduced its headcount by approximately 277 full-time and part-time employees.
The cryptocurrency sector is closely linked to the technology sector in general, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index is down almost 22.5% in the second quarter.
A “Tech Sector Layoff Tracker” from tech job board TrueUp reveals that More than 26,000 tech sector employees have been laid off at 200 companies in June alone.
Throughout the quarter, 307 layoffs affected more than 52,000 employees, one of the most important being Elon Musk’s Tesla, with 3,500 affected. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is listed twice, the first for its hiring freeze and the termination of the job offer of almost 350 people on June 2, and the second for its dismissal of personnel on June 14, which affected 1,100 people.
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