Crypto contagion is deterring investors in the short term, but fundamentals remain strong

The past six months have been nothing short of a financial soap opera for the cryptocurrency market, with more drama seemingly unfolding every other day. To this point, since the beginning of May, an increasing number of major crypto entities have fallen like dominoes, and the trend is likely to continue in the near future.

The contagion, for lack of a better word, was triggered by the collapse of the Terra ecosystem back in May, where the project’s associated digital currencies became worthless almost overnight. After the event, the crypto lending platform Celsius was faced with bankruptcy. Then Zipmex, a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange, froze all customer withdrawals, a move mirrored by crypto finance provider Babel Finance late last month.

It is worth noting that since December 2021, almost $2 trillion has been wiped from the digital asset industry. And while markets across the board — including stocks and commodities — have been severely impacted by the prevailing macroeconomic climate, the aforementioned amount of collapse has definitely had a role to play in the ongoing crypto drain. To this point, Ben Caselin, head of research and strategy at crypto exchange AAX, told Cointelegraph:

“The contagion has played a major role in the recent decline, but we cannot ignore the broader market conditions and the change in fiscal policy as important factors influencing the price. The situation regarding Celcius, Three Arrows Capital but also Terra is an expression of an over-leveraged system that is unable to withstand serious market stress. At the very least, this should act as a wake-up call for the industry.”

He went on to add that increasing mass adoption of digital currencies in the future should be done by expanding the scope of crypto beyond its prevailing “sound money narrative.” Caselin emphasized that the market as a whole must now take into account and implement financial practices that are sound and sustainable in the long run.

What do the latest insolvencies mean for the industry?

Felix Xu, CEO of decentralized finance (DeFi) project Bella Protocol and co-founder of ZX Squared Capital, told Cointelegraph that the past month has been a sort of “Lehman moment” for the crypto market. For the first time in history, this industry has witnessed the insolvency of major asset managers such as Celsius, Voyager and Babel Finance within a matter of months.

According to his personal research data, while ailing projects such as Voyager and Genesis collapsed due to the fact that they had the most exposure to Three Arrows Capital (3AC), the collapse of 3AC, Celsius and Babel Finance came about due to rogue management practices related to the assets of their users. Xu added:

“I think the first wave of forced liquidation and panic selling is now over. As asset managers and funds file for bankruptcy, their crypto-security will take a long time to liquidate. On the other hand, DeFi lending platforms such as MakerDAO, Aave and Compound Finance performed well during this downturn, as they are overburdened with strict liquidation rules written into their smart contracts.”

Going forward, he believes the crypto market is likely to move in correlation with other asset classes, including stocks, with the industry potentially taking some time to rebuild its lost investor confidence. That said, in Xu’s opinion, what happened last month with the crypto market is nothing new when it comes to the traditional financial space. “We have seen that in the financial crisis of 2008 and the Asian financial crisis of 1997,” he pointed out.

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Hatu Sheikh, co-founder of DAO Maker – a provider of growth technologies for nascent and growing crypto startups – told Cointelegraph that the fallout from this contagion has been highly negative, but not for the reason many would imagine:

“A key loss here is that many of the centralized financial platforms that went bankrupt due to the contagion were active incursions into the industry. Their unsustainable and often deceptive methods of attracting new industry entrants caused millions of people to seep deep into non- fungible tokens and DeFi.”

In Sheikh’s view, while DeFi onboarding may stall or at least slow down in the short term, many venture capital firms operating in his space have already raised billions and are thus able to continue to infuse funds into many up-and-coming startups. “We will have a new list of companies that will replace the lost roles as a boost to the industry,” he said.

Undeniably damaged the market’s reputation

Misha Lederman, director of communications for decentralized peer-to-peer and self-custodial crypto wallet Klever, told Cointelegraph that the recent crash has definitely damaged the industry’s reputation, but believes that the aforementioned insolvencies have helped cleanse the industry of bad players, adding:

“This presents a huge opportunity for blockchain platforms and crypto communities with a responsibility-driven approach to innovation, where user funds are protected at all costs. As an industry, we must be better than the fiat debt system we aim to replace.”

A similar sentiment is shared by Shyla Bashyr, PR and Communications Manager for UpLift DAO – a permissionless and decentralized token sale and exchange platform – who told Cointelegraph that the industry has been hit hard and is currently shrouded in more negativity than ever before.

However, she believes that such scenarios are sometimes necessary as they provide new opportunities to build transparent products that provide additional insurance, protection and security for people’s investments.

Sheikh pointed out that while there is widespread criticism that DeFi apps have lost billions, it is worth noting that the losses accumulated by CeFi borrowers are significantly higher:

“The fact remains that the remarkable blue chips of DeFi have remained largely unscathed, but the losses in CeFi are from industry leaders. But since crypto CeFi is a stepping stone in people’s journey to DeFi, industry adoption will be severely damaged in the short term.”

He concluded that “CeFi contagion” could ultimately prove to be a powerful catalyst for the growth of its decentralized counterpart, as well as a validation of crypto’s core uses, such as being self-fulfilling wealth.

The future may not be so bad

When asked what lies ahead for the crypto market, Narek Gevorgyan, CEO of CoinStats, told Cointelegraph that despite the prevailing conditions, the market has already started to show promising signs of recovery, saying that institutional investors are back on the playing field and exchanges inflows. is on the way up.

In this regard, banking titan Citigroup recently issued a report saying that the market crash is now in recession, with researchers noting that the “acute pay-off phase” that was recently in play is over, especially given that a large majority of major brokers and markets. manufacturers in the industry have come forward and disclosed their exposures.

Not only that, the study also shows that outflows of stablecoins have been halted while outflows from crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have also stabilized.

Gevorgyan believes that the trust investors have built up over the past couple of years has been somewhat dissolved due to recent events. Nevertheless, the blockchain community is still better funded than at any point in its short history, and development will most likely continue. Then he went on to add:

“The Terra implosion triggered a meltdown that brought several CeDeFi platforms down with it. The community has become more aware of the flaws of the CeDeFi model. Overall, the string of insolvencies has given the crypto market a chance to start over, as DeFi2 and Web3 continue to become more significant. Perhaps the Metaverse will take center stage in this new configuration.”

CeFi vs DeFi

Sheikh believes that the best of CeFi has lost more than the worst of DeFi, emphasizing that Bitcoin (BTC) has continued to remain one of the most liquid assets in the world. In his view, the next wave of retail adopters will have sharp references to the problem of skipping self-storage, thus paving the way for a greater focus on decentralized apps, especially as the market continues to mature.

On the other hand, Bashyr sees many protected projects such as insurance protocols and secured products flourishing from here on out. In her opinion, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) will become more prominent and functional, providing real governance and allowing users to participate in instrumental decisions by voting on proposals that make a difference.

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Finally, in Xu’s opinion, the insolvencies have resulted in millions of users calling for regulations like those governing traditional finance within the global crypto-economy to increase transparency about the investment of user assets. Xu added that since DeFi does not benefit from any single control point while offering full transparency and autonomous rules, it will eventually take over the crypto asset management business.

Therefore, as we enter a future plagued by economic uncertainty, it will be interesting to see how the future of the crypto market plays out. This is because more and more people continue to look for ways to preserve their wealth – thanks in large part to recession fears looming large on the horizon – and therefore consider crypto as their way out of the madness.