Bitcoin, Ethereum set for worst year since 2018

Bitcoin was off 0.6% at $16,521 in recent trade, according to FactSet, while Ethereum was off 0.4% near $1,195.

The cryptocurrency market has been hard hit this year, losing over $2 trillion in value since its peak in 2021. In the first half of the year, every major cryptocurrency price dropped, a major stablecoin collapsed, and crypto companies faced financial difficulties or even bankruptcy.

Read: ‘I just wake up and cry’: Voyager and Celsius bankruptcies have destroyed some crypto investors’ confidence in centralized platforms

Scandals and hacks also hit the sector, and victims lost over $3 billion to hacks. Lack of regulation in crypto and larger macroeconomic trends have been major factors in the industry’s losses this year.

Overall, the period of market cooling has been dubbed “crypto winter.”