The crypto market will make you suffer: how to recover from a period of intense stress and stay rational

Widespread consensus is that cryptocurrencies will rise in price as adoption increases. Nice theory. Too bad the reality is quite different: adoption accelerates, but prices languish. This contradiction is not a bug; it is an inevitable feature of the current phase.

Preparing for Psychological Pain

Here’s what you must accept immediately: you will see real cryptocurrency usage constantly expand while prices remain flat or decline. Meanwhile, you will watch other sectors (AI, stocks, the current speculative fashion) take off while crypto seems forgotten. It will feel deeply unfair. It will be like torture.

But the delay in prices is inevitable. Many crypto assets should never have had the valuations they achieved. When hype fades and real demand cannot sustain the price, the market recalibrates. It is the necessary path toward healthy long-term development.

The Stress of a Prolonged Bear Cycle

The initial adoption phase inevitably generates bubbles. Promising startups raise capital far beyond actual demand, business models are tested before validation. Some projects disappear quietly, others survive but with valuations much lower than initial promises.

Cryptocurrencies are moving from spotlight protagonists to invisible extras. From exciting to ordinary. It is the necessary path from hype to maturity, and it is a positive thing.

During the internet bubble burst, the Nasdaq plummeted 78%, but user numbers tripled and broadband infrastructure spread. The market took years to recover, while software “devoured the world” silently. History repeats itself.

How to Recover from a Period of Strong Stress

Protecting capital has become essential. Liquidity is not only for yield but for the psychological immunity it provides: it allows you to act when others cannot. When patience runs out, maintaining rationality becomes your true competitive advantage.

There is no need to act quickly. The market will continue to be volatile. Spend less time on your portfolio and more on those you love. Let the crypto world operate silently, whether in the shadows or under the spotlight; it is not your job to control it.

What Will Truly Win

Price cycles are driven by psychology and liquidity. Adoption cycles are driven by utility value and infrastructure. They are correlated but not synchronized. Historically, prices led adoption. Today, it is the opposite: adoption dominates, prices follow.

Currently, marginal buyers are elsewhere, in AI. But a world without stablecoins, transparent 24/7 payments, and real-time global regulations is becoming increasingly hard to imagine.

In the next decade and a half, most traditional companies will adopt crypto technology to stay competitive. By then, total market capitalization will surpass 10 trillion dollars. Stablecoins, tokenization, user base, and on-chain assets will grow exponentially.

The True Winners Will Not Be Who You Think

The uncomfortable question: who captures the residual value created by blockchain?

• Visa or Circle?
• Stripe or Ethereum?
• Robinhood or Coinbase?

History teaches us that secondary beneficiaries often gain more from the infrastructure itself. Hybrid companies that adopt open regulation channels to reduce costs and increase margins will likely perform better than pure Layer 1 protocols.

Distribution, market entry strategies, user relationships, and unit economics will be much more important than first-mover advantage. A common mistake in crypto is overestimating initial technological innovation and underestimating everything else.

A Reality Without Illusions

I am not particularly optimistic about prices in the coming years. Adoption will continue, but prices could fall further, worsened by the mean reversion of stocks and the cooling of the AI speculative cycle.

But patience is a great advantage:

• Optimist: crypto-as-a-service, companies enabled by crypto
• Pessimist: excessive financialization, failed unit economics, overcapacitated infrastructure

Professional managers must frequently rebalance to justify their fees. Retail investors chase short-term trends. Institutional investors declare crypto dead. Meanwhile, more and more traditional companies adopt the technology, and more balance sheets connect to the blockchain.

One day, when you look back, everything will be so obvious. Signals are everywhere; only certainty always comes after prices rise.

Until then: wait for the pain. Wait for sellers to capitulate, wait for faith to collapse. But we are not there yet.