Crypto winter has been the main story in digital assets since early 2025. Many traders still call it a dip, but the price action looks like a true crypto winter. Bitcoin hit a record above $125,000 in early October 2025, then slid hard in the months that followed. Now, the market is trying to find its footing, and that is what a crypto winter feels like.
In a crypto winter, good headlines do not move prices the way people expect. You can get news about new products, new rules, and new big-name buyers, and the charts still fall. That gap confuses people. It should not. A crypto winter often runs on one thing: forced selling. When leverage builds up, a drop triggers liquidations. When that happens, even strong projects can sink with the rest of the market.
This crypto winter also shows a split inside crypto itself. Large coins that big firms can buy tend to hold up better. Smaller coins that lack easy access through funds tend to drop more. That pattern matters because it changes how the pain spreads. Retail holders feel the crypto winter first. Big flows can mask it for a while, then the stress shows up later when the market runs out of new buyers.
That backdrop set the tone Tuesday in New York City, where Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead spoke on a panel with Tom Lee at the Ondo Summit. They acknowledged the rough market, but they pushed a long view. Morehead argued that bitcoin should beat gold over the next decade because bitcoin has a fixed supply, while fiat money loses buying power over time. In a crypto winter, that kind of claim will not lift prices today, but it tells you how long-term investors frame the trade.
Morehead also said many large institutions still hold little or no crypto, even after bitcoin ETFs arrived. That point matters in a crypto winter because it hints at where new demand could come from later. If big pools of money stay on the sidelines during a crypto winter, the market can remain weak. If those pools start to allocate after conditions calm, prices can recover faster than most expect.
Lee challenged a simple “four-year cycle” story. He pointed to signs of a major deleveraging event tied to the October 2025 crash and said the market structure keeps changing. Crypto winter does not always follow the same script. Sometimes the bottom comes when people stop watching. Sometimes it comes after a final wave of forced selling. Either way, crypto winter tends to end when sellers run out, not when optimists show up.
Regulation sits in the middle of this crypto winter. In the United States, lawmakers have debated a market-structure proposal often called the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025. The bill aims to set clearer federal rules for digital assets. But talks have hit friction, including a fight over whether stablecoin issuers should be allowed to offer interest-like rewards. This matters because stablecoins act like the cash leg of crypto trading. In a crypto winter, traders lean on stablecoins even more, since they want to park value without leaving the ecosystem.
Even with policy debates, builders keep shipping. Stablecoins keep growing. Tokenized assets keep showing up in pilots. Big firms keep exploring custody and settlement tech. Those trends can feel invisible during a crypto winter because price screens drown out everything else. Still, they build the rails that can support the next upcycle.
So how should an enthusiast read this crypto winter? First, treat it like a season, not a weekend event. Crypto winter can last long enough to wear people down. Second, watch where stress shows up. If liquidations spike, it can force another leg down. If volume dries up and price stops falling on bad news, crypto winter may be closer to the end. Third, keep an eye on the gap between large coins and smaller coins. That gap often tells you where liquidity sits, and liquidity runs the show in a crypto winter.
No one can call the exact turn. But crypto winter has a pattern: it ends when boredom replaces panic. If you expected nonstop rallies because of ETFs, institutions, or new laws, this crypto winter is the reminder that markets move on positioning and cash flow first. When the selling fades, the same “good news” that got ignored during crypto winter can start to matter again.
