At US$999 per ticket you too can spend a couple days with 12,000 other Bitcoin enthusiasts engaged in decentralized camaraderie. The event is Bitcoin 2023 in Miami Beach, FL. Activities range from a bitcoin art gallery to testing the latest and greatest bitcoin mining rigs and attending panels. That 12,000 figure is less than half of last year’s attendance, which probably has something to do with bitcoin’s value dropping about 60% from its all-time high in 2021. Just last October, Logan Paul, internet provocateur who went full Bernie Madoff in one of the most publicized rug pull scams in internet history, lost $613k on Azuki’s Bumblebee NFT (non-fungible token). There was a lot of talk about ‘crypto winter’ being the cause of the downturn of the NFT market. This year, Bitcoin is up 63% from last year’s value which still really doesn’t offset last year’s 60% loss. To cover a 60% drop it would have to increase by 150% this year (100/(100-60)-1)=1.5 (150%). At a rise of 63% we have only covered less than half of the original loss experienced last year.

As it stands, crypto’s entire market cap is $1.13 trillion – a significant number but a majority of what is being traded are stablecoins at the present moment. Coins pegged 1:1 to the US dollar. During economic downturn, this is a way to protect the investor from excessive losses. Regardless of crypto’s volatility, countries are pushing harder than ever to become crypto hubs including the UK, Hong Kong, France, and Canada among others. China has even introduced its own digital yuan in a bid to create the first central bank digital currency.

Biden, like the Jack Frost of Crypto Winter, has proposed an excise tax on cryptocurrency miners equal to 30 percent of the cost of the electricity they use, and plans to eliminate tax-deductible losses related to wash-trading of crypto tokens, according to a U.S. Department of the Treasury’s document published in March. This may offset foreseeable gains in the next year in the DeFi market.

Bitcoin is the biggest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $537.5 billion. On Monday Bitcoin surged to near highs of $28,500 and the highest price in two weeks while debt-ceiling drama ensued. Once an agreement had been reached in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, gains dwindled and it’s back down to the $27,000 mark.

In May 2020, the number of bitcoin (BTC) entering circulation every 10 minutes – known as block rewards – dropped by half, from 12.5 to 6.25. It’s a milestone that was easy to see coming because it happens every 210,000 blocks (approximately every four years) and had happened twice before 2020. Some think next year will be a big year for this specific currency. Many investors don’t necessarily agree.

Bottom line: Even with Bitcoin ‘halving’ in 2024, which some Bitcoin acolytes think could send the price to soaring, there are still hard times ahead for crypto as a whole. Mostly because of its hard hit last year. Coupled with concerns over new regulations that might make the entire crypto market less profitable, crypto investors are most definitely concerned.