According to analysts, crypto investors should not panic too much. Investing in digital assets can turn out to be much more profitable, even if at first glance the risks seem to be too great.

Why invest in cryptocurrency

Let’s take a mental look back to the end of 2021, when Bitcoin was trading around $47,000, 32 percent below its all-time high. At that time, the tech-focused Nasdaq stock index was at 15,650 points, just 3 per cent below its highest level in history.

Between 2021 and 2022, the Nasdaq is up about 75 per cent, but Bitcoin is up 544 per cent. One would assume that a potential correction caused by macroeconomic tensions or a major crisis would cause Bitcoin’s price to suffer disproportionately more than a traditional asset.

Bitcoin and Nasdaq chart

In the end, these “macroeconomic tensions and crises” did happen, and the value of BTC fell another 57 per cent from the end of 2021 to $20,250. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq is down 24.4 per cent by today. This is the main reason why doubting investors should reconsider the prospect of investing in crypto, experts say. The potential for a risk-to-reward ratio after a correction in risky assets leaves more room for cryptocurrency growth.

In other words, Bitcoin could be a profitable investment after a market rebound, even if that rebound is accompanied by a relatively slow rise in stock indices. The volatility of the crypto market is higher anyway, meaning that with moderate risk, BTC will show better returns than traditional assets. At the very least, this scenario seems logical given previous market behaviour.

Read also: What part of crypto investors managed to keep their bitcoins during the current bearish trend?

High volatility for crypto can be provided not only by real traders, but also by the manipulation of crypto exchanges. According to Cointelegraph’s sources, this was stated by Forbes analysts the day before. According to their information, the reported trading volumes of transactions on 157 trading platforms often do not match the reality. This is especially true for little-known platforms, where the share of fake volumes can reach 95%.

As a reminder, fake volumes are created by identical asset buy/sell transactions posted by the exchanges themselves. In other words, these figures do not reflect the real activity of traders, but are only created to attract the attention of users.

Fake and real exchange volumes. The Forbes study divides them into three groups – with low, medium and high differences between real and fake transaction volumes

Here’s a quote from the Forbes article on the subject.

More than half of all reported trading volumes are likely to be fake. On June 14, the industry’s global daily BTC trading volume was $128 billion. That’s 51 percent less than the $262 billion, a figure compiled solely from the exchanges’ reported data.

Fake volumes are a serious enough problem. They mislead investors and do not provide liquidity. That is, if a major market player wants to sell a lot of crypto-assets in a short period of time, due to real low activity of traders, the price of coins on such a platform will noticeably drop.

Fake volumes aren’t the only problem in the industry, though. Check Point Software Technologies released a report the day before about the problem of hundreds of thousands of computers being infected with hidden mining malware. According to the analysts, this trend is difficult to combat, which is why it has remained unchecked by any authorities for several years now. And computer infection often occurs after installing clones of popular platforms like YouTube Music, Google Translate and Microsoft Translate.

How do hidden miners work on a computer?

The analysts’ report mentions the Nitrokod hacker campaign, which has Turkish roots and is distributed through a website with the same name. The site is still up and running and appears on the first page of Google searches. Hackers have already infected at least a hundred thousand machines in 11 countries since 2019. According to sources, fake versions of real apps from Nitrokod are also distributed on Softpedia and Uptodown software platforms.

Malware from Nitrokod

In the screenshot below, you can see Google Translate Desktop page, a fake version of the real translator from Google. Here the software has over a thousand reviews and an average rating of 9.3/10 stars. Recall that Google does not have a downloadable version of the translator at all.

Google Translate Desktop page on Softpedia

These hidden miners disguised as desktop versions of various popular platforms – even if they don’t exist in reality at all – are difficult to detect and remove on a computer. It is reported that the malware may block some functions of anti-virus software in order to remain undetected by the average user. Another interesting detail: a miner may be inactive for a relatively long time after infecting the device, and then it will gradually start using the machine’s resources to stealthily mine Monero altcoin.

Malware on the first page of Google

Hackers often choose Monero for hidden mining. It is an anonymous cryptocurrency, with transactions virtually untraceable even by security analysts. Therefore, it is still the responsibility of the user to protect their own devices from fraudsters and hackers. The best way to combat such miners is to follow basic rules of cyber hygiene – do not click on suspicious links and do not install unofficial versions of applications.

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Despite all the nasty incidents with scammers, the crypto market is growing in popularity. According to a recent report from platform Coingecko, among US states, California ranks first in terms of users who are interested in Bitcoin and Etherium – accounting for 43 percent of the platform’s search queries. And that’s given that California’s population is only 11.9 percent of the total US population.

CoinGecko chief operating officer and co-founder Bobby Ong sees the trend as a legitimate one, as California is a “major technology hub”. After all, it is home to Silicon Valley, one of the largest tech and innovation hubs in the world. Some of the biggest companies based in Silicon Valley that have invested in blockchain-based applications and crypto startups include Apple, Google, Meta, PayPal and Wells Fargo.

Data on the popularity of BTC and ETH in various US states

Many prestigious universities with excellent engineering and technology departments are also located in California – for example, Stanford University, the California Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley.

Other states with strong interest in BTC and ETH include Illinois, New York, Florida and Washington. Earlier, a similar study was conducted by Study.com, only it took into account the popularity of cryptocurrencies among parents who considered digital assets as a new required subject in their children’s school curriculum.


We believe that cryptocurrencies could indeed prove to be an attractive asset given current exchange rates. Certainly, in the middle of a bearish trend, it is hard to imagine the same Bitcoin at $69K, but in previous cycles the cryptocurrency has consistently not only reached its all-time high, but also updated it. Therefore, there is a chance that if there is enough interest from new users, the situation with the coin will repeat itself next time.


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