Crypto Holds Steady as Tech Stocks Sink

Netflix’s stock price collapsed by 37% today after its earnings report noted a subscriber loss, its first in 10 years. Many other pandemic-favorite stocks have seen trouble as the virus is increasingly seen as the new normal, while the crypto market favorites have maintained much of their gains.

Crypto Market Flat

Reminiscent of Meta’s historic shedding of a quarter trillion dollars in market value earlier this year, Netflix lost more than a third of its market capitalization today, due largely to the world opening back up as the pandemic wanes. Other popular tech stocks like Meta and Disney have also fallen significantly today (7% and 5%).

Despite the bloodshed in some of the most well-known companies in the world, the crypto market has been relatively flat today. Bitcoin oscillated between $40,000 and $42,000 today before settling back down just above $41,100, while Ethereum is only down about 1.4% today at $3,070.

Following the extreme market crash of March 2020, when Bitcoin dipped below $4,000 and Ethereum below $100, crypto has seen an explosion in terms of both price and popularity. This was in part due to the dovish policies of central banks around the world during the pandemic, which also benefitted the stock market.

However, unlike many of the greatest beneficiary companies over the past two and a half years (i.e. during the pandemic), crypto has held up relatively well. While the total cryptocurrency market capitalization has shed about one third of its value since the highs of last November, it still sits approximately ten times higher today than it did at the onset of the pandemic.

In contrast, many of the stock market favorites during the pandemic have collapsed. Peloton is down 77% over the past year; Zoom is down 67%; DocuSign sits below $100, with all-time-highs over $300. Cathie Wood’s flagship ARKK exchange-traded fund has lost two thirds of its value from its pandemic highs. The list of hyped-up stocks that have such significant declines is extensive, including Fastly, Teladoc, Plug Power, Novavax, and Draftkings.

Of course, the list of cryptocurrencies that have crumbled from their pandemic highs is also extensive. However, buying small “altcoins” is notoriously risky, and should be distinguished from the crypto market at large based on market cap and longevity. However, as has been seen,  investors in the stock market can lose a lot of money as well, and they do not even have to trade on the fringe to do so.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned BTC, ETH, and several other cryptocurrencies.