Crypto markets are in disarray.
Bitcoin was hovering at about $67,000 as of 7:00 a.m. in London on Thursday, down about 47% from an October peak. So-called altcoins, the vast swathes of smaller, highly speculative tokens at the market’s fringes, have fared even worse. Liquidity is perilously patchy. Listed firms that had hoarded tokens are under pressure. And even South Koreans — a longstanding bastion of support for crypto’s riskiest trades — are turning their attention elsewhere.
Yet at the Consensus conference in Hong Kong, the mood was upbeat. Executives at some of the biggest digital-assets exchanges reverted to a tried-and-tested line.
“I do urge people not to just look at one point of time, because in crypto we go through cycles,” said Richard Teng, co-chief executive officer of Binance Holdings Ltd., the world’s largest digital-assets exchange, in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
Richard Teng, Co-CEO at Binance, says a record spree of liquidations that wiped out $19 billion in leveraged positions in October was “a crypto event, not a Binance event.” The world’s largest digital asset platform has been facing accusations that it bears responsibility for the crash.
Bybit Chief Executive Officer Ben Zhou put it more bluntly: “Now is a good time to buy Bitcoin,” he said during a question-and-answer session at the conference.
The crypto market began unraveling in October, days after Bitcoin hit a record of over $126,000. More than $19 billion in bullish bets were snuffed out, triggering a sharp retreat. Prices have been on shaky ground ever since. Then, in early February, the pressure intensified, dragging Bitcoin to about $60,000 and wiping out all its gains since the re-election of pro-crypto US President Donald Trump.
The overall market value of all cryptocurrencies has fallen by about $2 trillion over that period, according to CoinGecko data.
Such has been the fallout that the nature of Bitcoin as an asset has repeatedly been called into question. In the past it had at times moved in line with stocks and other risk assets. Some have framed it as a kind of “digital gold” — a refuge in times of turbulence. It has adhered to neither pattern since October.
The Oct. 10 liquidations are partly to blame for Bitcoin decoupling from stocks, said Joe Lubin, founder and chief executive officer of Consensys, a software developer. At the time, crypto project Ethena’s yield-bearing stablecoin briefly lost its dollar-peg on Binance, falling to 65 cents on the platform.
“That essentially caused a lot of market damage” that triggered forced liquidations, Lubin said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “With the massive plunge a couple of weeks ago, we finally I think have flushed that out of the system.”
Lubin is also a co-founder of Ethereum, the blockchain that underpins most decentralized activity in the crypto market. Its native token Ether is currently trading at about $2,000, down roughly 60% from an Aug. 2025 record.
Under Trump, the US has introduced legislation that aims to foster the growth of digital assets, while erecting clear guardrails. The first year of Trump’s second term as president also saw a flurry of public listings by crypto firms, including Circle Internet Group Inc. and Gemini Space Station Inc.
Overseas companies, too, are looking to the US for public offerings. Hong Kong’s Animoca Brands said last year that it plans to go public on the Nasdaq stock exchange through a reverse merger with Currenc Group Inc.
Yat Siu, Animoca’s executive chairman, said investors “aren’t too bothered” by crypto volatility, because the company remains profitable. “If you’re a sophisticated investor, you understand it’s volatile and this is still an early stage asset, so it’s going to go up and down,” he said in an interview.
Even as Hong Kong’s crypto elite shrug off price fluctuations, some foresee more pressure ahead.
It appears “inevitable to us that there will be continued downside,” said Tokenize Capital Managing Partner Hayden Hughes. He expects to see Bitcoin trading at $35,000 by September “and potentially lower by year-end.”
Read more on Bloomberg Business
