How to Take Advantage of the Crypto Winter

Hint: It’s by finding new technology

Crypto Winter?

It’s no doubt that we’re in a crypto winter right now — rising interest rates and a global recession stemming from the aftereffects of COVID-19 policy have resulted in low cryptocurrency prices and less demand in Web3-adjacent spaces like NFTs and ‘Web3 gaming’. With the market value of all cryptocurrencies dropping over 60% — falling from $3 trillion down to $1 trillion — we’ve seen layoffs and collapses at some of the largest crypto companies like Coinbase and FTX (yikes), and the end to this winter is not yet in sight. Consequently, it’s impossible to predict when this market’s low crypto prices, low NFT sale values, and low(er) general interest will end.

What Can I Do?

As a writer who only recently got into Web3, the crypto winter was definitely disheartening to hear and read about. I’ve shifted my focus from investing in crypto to the technology powered by crypto, and how these emerging Web3 technologies can benefit the general public and keep us afloat during this crypto winter. While doing my research, I noticed an interesting positive trend: while the success of traditional Web3 technologies like crypto exchanges (*cough*, FTX) and NFT marketplaces have fallen by potentially over 75%, up-and-coming new platforms are continuing to flourish. Web3 startups were the largest venture-capital spend for the fifth consecutive quarter, and users that are using these new Web3 platforms are prospering as well.

Last month, a writer on Medium published this article about how he was able to earn over $600 and make over 100,000 impressions within his first month on In Writing, a new text-NFT marketplace. Users are reporting similar experiences with art and music NFT marketplaces, but also with Web3 marketing and other data-driven startups. As a writer, I have a vested interest in writing-based Web3 startups, and I’ll be presenting a case study on In Writing, as well as other text-NFT platforms such as Storya and textarea; explaining how these platforms have managed to maintain over 10,000 MATIC of trading volume (in the case of In Writing), or raise over 23 ETH (in the case of textarea) even during this crypto winter; and explaining how you can take advantage of similar technologies during this crypto winter.

In Writing

I onboarded with two of the three platforms — textarea required 0.1 ETH per mint, which was too much for me for my purposes of experimentation — and definitely preferred In Writing. It was immediately obvious why the platform was doing well — writers could mint, for free, with a few clicks.

In Writing’s ‘writing’ interface (inwriting.io/write), where I’ve written my initials. To mint, all I had to do was give it my Web3 wallet address — no payment necessary, not even for gas!

I minted my signature in under 30 seconds by giving it only my crypto address, and I validated that the NFT was successfully minted and in my wallet (proof below!)

Proof of my successful mint — it’s at the top of inwriting.io/read, as of the writing of this article (December 7, 2022)!

With some more digging, I saw that In Writing is also working to fight plagiarism with a manual verification system (which I have applied for!), and with a ‘smart contract’ that means that the text of every NFT must be unique (e.g. the same text can’t be ‘minted’ twice). I thought the platform was really cool, and their completely-free-mint feature made it incredibly enticing for myself as a writer to try it out. I think other successful Web3 technologies have implemented similar easy-onboarding processes to curb the devastating impacts of the crypto winter and maintain high user retention.

Baring Through the Crypto Winter

Not only was it easy to mint on In Writing — I noticed a lot of writers have been finding financial success on In Writing despite the crypto winter. I mentioned earlier that Mason Kenning was able to earn almost a thousand dollars in his first month on In Writing, and while I was exploring the website, I found this poem below that sold for over 800 MATIC (over $700 USD at the time of writing). I dug deeper, and found a common element between Mason’s account and this poet’s account — they were both prolific writers that had been minting, and presumably writing, all throughout the crypto winter.

The aforementioned poem, which had been listed and bought for over 800 MATIC ($700 USD at the time of writing)

It’s not just writers that have found success on In Writing, however. In my brief exploration, I found Tweets and other short messages that had sold for as much as 760 MATIC ($684 USD at the time of writing).

A Tweet I found that had sold for a lot.

It seems that the key to prospering during this recession and crypto winter is to push forward and continue looking for new, profitable technologies such as In Writing — especially if they’re offering promotions where you can mint for free.

It’s not all good though…

Don’t get me wrong — text NFTs, like all NFTs, are still impacted by the crypto winter. Although they aren’t as impacted by lower sales volume or buyer interest, the low cryptocurrency prices of crypto winter are still impacting our bottom line as writers. MATIC, the cryptocurrency In Writing uses, for example, is over 30% under its “all time high” value. This means that when you sell an NFT on In Writing, you might be getting the same amount of cryptocurrency — 100 MATIC, for example — but if you want to convert that back to $USD (or whatever your currency of choice is), you’ll get 30% less cash than when MATIC was at it’s best (before the crypto winter). Essentially, even though you might be making the same sales, the crypto winter is forcing you to make a choice between sacrificing liquidity or sacrificing income. Unfortunately, that’s the impact of global events like a crypto winter: just like how in a recession, you might be forced to take on a higher mortgage or lower-paying job.

Wrapping up

Despite the impacts of the crypto winter, lots of Web3 users and enthusiasts have found ways to hunker down and continue to make money and grow the space. If you’re a writer, I definitely recommend checking out In Writing. If you’re not, I’d still recommend it — you can mint a Tweet or a funny joke for free, and there’s thousands of users who have done the same and seen financial results from it — but I’d also recommend doing your own research and looking for Web3 startups in your areas of interest! Best of luck to all my fellow writers and crypto enthusiasts, and I look forward to seeing where platforms like In Writing and technologies like textarea are at after this crypto winter.