Crypto crash ruins Thanksgiving for retail traders once again

A television broadcasts Bitcoin news on the floor of the NYSE in New York on Nov. 24. (Photo: Bloomberg)

The $1 trillion crypto wipeout is setting the stage for some tricky conversations at Thanksgiving tables.

After a massive rally following President Donald Trump’s election, Bitcoin is currently on track for its worst month since 2022, with smaller tokens facing similar declines. For retail traders, it’s becoming something of a holiday tradition — they hype up digital assets to their relatives and friends all year, only to see massive plunges in the winter months.

That was the case three years ago, as the downfall of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange coincided with family gatherings where fervent retail traders were forced to address awkward questions about crypto’s future. Now, Bitcoin enthusiasts are gearing up to confront a similar dilemma.

One question that Michael Smith, an investor in New Jersey, expects to get is: “Why are you still in this?”

The 48-year-old, who works in financial services sales, is driving to Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving with his in-laws, where he anticipates his 15-year-old nephew will ask about Bitcoin and whether he should invest. And although Smith has been investing in crypto since around 2016, he readily admits that he doesn’t have all the answers.

“Right now people are just freaking out in general about the economy and markets,” said Smith, whose Bitcoin holdings peaked at around $25,000. “You’re hearing all this bubble talk. It hurts when you go and look.”

Brutal Drop
The most recent Bitcoin plunge has been short and sharp — just weeks after hitting a record of more than $126,000 in early October, the largest cryptocurrency is now trading around $88,000. Meanwhile Ether has fallen roughly 40% from an August high.

The reasons behind the pullback are multifaceted, but a major factor is that investors have grown skeptical of two main bull cases: multiple Federal Reserve interest‑rate cuts and growing institutional adoption. In the absence of those catalysts, crypto prices have fallen sharply, and investors have pulled more than $3.5 billion from US-listed Bitcoin exchange-traded funds.

Traders like Zach Lonergan are preparing to defend crypto in front of skeptical family members. The 31-year-old who lives in Austin got into digital assets right before the pandemic, but really boosted his stake in Bitcoin in 2022 and 2023. Now his portfolio is all crypto, with 85% in Bitcoin.

He said he’s had the same conversation at every single Thanksgiving and Christmas with family: What’s Bitcoin? What does it do? That’s given him the chance to “evangelize a little bit and just show them how fun it can be.” His Thanksgiving gathering will involve some 34 people including his brother’s four kids, so he’s planning to juggle babysitting duty alongside cooking mashed potatoes and answering questions about Bitcoin.

Lonergan, who runs a landscaping business, is undeterred by the latest pullback, comparing it to his passion for the Texas A&M University football team, which he’s supported in spite of its mixed track record.

“The story of my life is of being a human punching bag,” he said. “And then I go, ‘OK, is that all you got?’ I love being scrappy. I like the idea of Bitcoin winning because it does kind of tell everybody off.”

Megan Lineberry, a 36-year-old in Raleigh, North Carolina, has convinced family and friends and even her hairdresser to invest in digital assets in the past few years. She said crypto is always a topic of conversation at her Thanksgiving gatherings. This year will be even more intense since she recently quit her job as a nurse to trade full time.

“I've made this into my career now, and they are going to look at me like, ‘What are you doing? The market is crashing,’” she said. “I do anticipate a lot of questions. I’m just going to reassure them that long term I do believe in crypto and Bitcoin.”Pain Ahead
Other retail traders like Kyle Figs in Minnesota are less optimistic about Bitcoin’s near-term path. The 39-year-old, who runs a YouTube channel about crypto, is still a believer in the largest cryptocurrency, but said he wouldn’t be surprised if Bitcoin fell further to around $65,000.

To him, the period around Thanksgiving often marks the top for Bitcoin — that was the case in both 2017 and 2021. Holiday gatherings in which families hyped up crypto convinced new traders to put cash into the market, only to see the value of their investments drop in subsequent months. At the time, retail cash flooding into the space caused professionals on Wall Street to sound alarm bells about market froth.

Figs said he has a few long-term positions in Bitcoin but is mostly staying on the sidelines of this most recent cycle, waiting it out in cash. In term of other crypto investments, he’s got money in the tokens ICP and TACO. This year, Figs said he’s expecting lots of questions from his brother-in-law about crypto investing.

“I’ve had some of the older generations asking me about Bitcoin mining — it’s catching the eye of more and more people,” he said. “I start to wonder if this is the top when you get these kinds of questions.”

Chelsea Von Schneden, who creates crypto content on TikTok, said she’s dreading the crypto conversations. In the three years she’s been trading digital assets, she’s convinced family and friends to also buy in.

“Now we have to go to Thanksgiving, sit down at a table and have everyone look at their phones to see that Bitcoin and the altcoins that they bought into are either at the same level as two years ago or going lower,” said the 44-year-old, who lives in Connecticut. “That is not an easy thing to explain.”