Crypto Winter will not freeze Fintech’s interest

The crypto winter of 2022 froze the growth of crypto companies and triggered investor selling. But even with assets plunging, industry insiders have continued to press forward through the downturn — restructuring teams, redesigning products and announcing new offerings for both institutional and private investors.

Why? For starters, the fintech community has already doubled down on building long-term infrastructure around digital assets, while TradFi continues to pile in, catch up and push on.

Investors still care too, as do the financial companies that serve them. Conversations about crypto have actually been revived in recent weeks, with much overdue realignment underway.

BlackRock launched bitcoin investment for its large institutional clients. Mastercard and Binance launched a prepaid card offering crypto rewards in Argentina. Nasdaq launched Nasdaq Digital Assets, offering custody services for bitcoin and ether to institutional investors. And a number of brokerages have opened their doors to crypto investing, including Stash’s new crypto offering, Fidelity’s new Ethereum Index Fund, and even my company, M1 and our launch of M1 Crypto.

So why is all this happening, seemingly at the worst possible time? And where do the believers go from here?

Think long term

The answer lies in the retail investors themselves, who drive the crypto movement.

Despite the downturn, interest in and demand for crypto as a long-term investment is still very much alive.

Crypto is often seen as a tool for day traders and investors intent on making a quick dollar through constant buying and selling, but in reality, there is a strong group of believers who keep the crypto dream alive through their holdings.

That core sticks around. A survey M1 conducted of over 1,000 private crypto investors in September 2022 showed that the majority of these investors plan to hold their current crypto assets for more than six months. In fact, despite the crypto winter, only 21% of respondents plan to sell.

And there is still so much left to build.

Over the coming year we will undoubtedly see even more convergence of DeFi and TradFi. Institutional adoption will increase and crypto companies and projects will continue to raise money to support new innovations in the industry.

As long as the fire is still lit, we can be sure that spring will come again.

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