How to protect your cryptocurrencies from market downturns

Source: CritpoTendencia Original Title: How to Protect Your Cryptocurrencies from Market Crashes Original Link: The cryptocurrency market has been characterized from its inception by extreme volatility, which can generate both opportunities and devastating losses.

Throughout its short but intense history, we have witnessed brutal crashes that have wiped out billions of dollars in market capitalization and left millions of investors with significant losses. However, every crisis offers valuable lessons that, although they do not guarantee immunity from future crashes, do allow for building stronger strategies to protect assets.

The 2018 Crash and the Myth of Diversification

After the historic rally at the end of 2017 that took Bitcoin up to $20,000, the market entered a downward spiral in 2018 that lasted the entire year. Bitcoin fell to $3,000, losing more than 80% of its value, while many altcoins practically disappeared.

The decline was not caused by a specific event, but by a combination of factors: the end of the speculative cycle, the ban on crypto advertising by Google and Facebook, and increasing regulatory pressure.

The most important lesson from 2018 is that diversification within the crypto universe does not offer real protection during broad market downturns. Virtually all digital assets fell in parallel, following Bitcoin’s trend.

Investors who thought they were diversified by holding ten different altcoins discovered that, in reality, all their assets were correlated. True diversification means having exposure to uncorrelated asset classes outside the crypto ecosystem.

New Risks: The Case of Crypto Casinos

The growth of the blockchain ecosystem has given rise to new applications that go beyond simple exchange and value storage. A notable example is the proliferation of gaming platforms that operate exclusively with cryptocurrencies.

These platforms perfectly illustrate several risks investors face. First, the volatility of the asset being used: winning in a crypto casino during a bear market can mean ending up with less real value than you started with.

Additionally, many of these platforms operate without clear regulation, increasing the risk of fraud or sudden disappearance. Custody risk also remains present: depositing funds in a crypto casino means trusting the platform to keep those assets safe and available. This reality reminds us that the crypto ecosystem, while innovative, is plagued by services where trust can break down quickly.

Terra/LUNA: When Math Isn’t Enough

In May 2022, the Terra ecosystem collapsed in a matter of days, wiping out more than $40 billion in value. UST, its algorithmic stablecoin supposedly pegged to the dollar, lost its peg and triggered a death spiral that dragged down LUNA, the protocol’s native token, from over $80 to virtually zero.

The UST model relied on a theoretical arbitrage mechanism that proved insufficient in the face of a massive crisis of confidence. Additionally, the Anchor protocol offered 20% annual yields on UST deposits, an unsustainable promise that attracted capital but also created a single point of systemic failure.

The lesson from Terra is twofold: first, not all stablecoins offer the same security; stablecoins backed by real assets like USDC or USDT are structurally more robust than algorithmic ones.

Second, any promise of extraordinary guaranteed returns should be viewed with extreme caution. In finance, there are no free lunches, and abnormally high returns usually hide extraordinary risks.

FTX: The Betrayal No One Expected

Barely six months after the Terra disaster, the crypto world suffered another devastating blow: the collapse of FTX, one of the largest and seemingly most reliable exchanges in the sector.

In November 2022, a journalistic investigation revealed that Alameda Research, FTX’s sister quantitative fund, had more than $14 billion in FTT tokens, the exchange’s native asset, on its balance sheet.

This revelation exposed a network of mismanagement, conflicts of interest, and, according to later accusations, outright fraud. Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX and a prominent sector figure, had used customer funds to cover Alameda Research’s losses. When customers rushed to withdraw their funds, FTX could not meet the demand and filed for bankruptcy.

Investors lost billions, and Bankman-Fried himself was sentenced in 2024 to 25 years in prison on multiple fraud charges.

The FTX case offers multiple critical lessons: the counterparty risk when depositing cryptocurrencies on an exchange, the importance of corporate governance (FTX had only two board members and kept chaotic accounting records), the illusion of institutional backing (it had raised hundreds of millions from prestigious venture capital funds) and, above all, the relevance of the mantra “not your keys, not your coins.” Keeping cryptocurrencies on exchanges for long periods exposes you to unnecessary risks.

Practical Strategies to Protect Your Assets

Learning from these historical lessons, investors can implement concrete strategies to better protect their wealth. Real diversification is essential: including traditional assets such as stocks, bonds, and real estate in the portfolio reduces exposure to crypto risk.

A 100% crypto portfolio is completely exposed to the sector’s violent cycles. Self-custody for the long term, using hardware wallets to store cryptocurrencies that are not planned for active trading, eliminates the counterparty risk associated with exchanges. This requires responsibility in handling private keys, but it is the only real way to own cryptocurrencies.

Skepticism toward extraordinary promises is essential: guaranteed 20% annual returns, tokens that “can only go up,” or platforms that seem too good to be true often hide structural problems or outright frauds.

Setting limits and periodically rebalancing helps prevent exposure from growing uncontrollably during rallies and maintains discipline during downturns.

Equally important is having a pre-determined plan for bear markets, which avoids emotional decisions during crises.

Finally, continuous education is fundamental: truly understanding the projects you invest in, following reliable sources of information, and maintaining a critical attitude are essential in an ecosystem where innovation coexists with fraud.

Conclusion

Cryptocurrency market crashes are not occasional anomalies, but recurring features of a young, speculative, and constantly evolving sector.

The 2018 crash taught us that correlation between crypto assets is very high during crises. Terra/LUNA showed that even seemingly sophisticated mechanisms can collapse if their foundations are weak.

FTX reminded us that blind trust in centralized platforms, regardless of their apparent prestige, is dangerous. Protecting assets in this environment requires a multidimensional approach: real diversification beyond crypto, self-custody when possible, skepticism toward extraordinary promises, emotional discipline, and constant education.

There is no strategy that completely eliminates risk, but understanding the lessons of the past allows you to build stronger defenses against future crashes.