The crypto market hasn’t been able to shake its latest downturn, with venture capital funding in the sector declining and investor sentiment remaining fearful.
And with this Crypto Winter accompanying a macroeconomic drawdown, it’s “difficult to say” when and if things will get better, said Rayne Steinberg, founder and CEO of digital asset investment firm Arca.
However, Steinberg remains optimistic, telling Fortune that “we’re probably closer to the end” of the slump than not.
One reason why, he said, is that “about a month and a half ago, we really started to see [crypto market] correlations break down to the broader asset classes,” although cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have largely moved with stocks.
“We’ve seen a dispersion of returns within crypto,” he added, noting a few “idiosyncratic things” such as markets responding to when “a company does well: News impacts.”
Additionally, “you’re starting to see not just everything as high beta or different betas of Bitcoin or Ethereum,” Steinberg said, which in his opinion “suggests that we’re closer to the end.”
He acknowledged that it’s obviously difficult to predict future movements of the crypto market, and that anything can happen to further prolong the downturn, but “it feels like at least the bottom,” Steinberg said. “How long we stay down here—that’s a question.”