Perhaps Bianca, commenting on Twitter, summed it up best.
"Gas prices are doing what I wish crypto was doing -.- going up!" she lamented.
'The Seas of Fate'
Yes, it has been a rough time for cryptocurrencies. Once considered a safe haven from the stock market, crypto and Wall Street now move in the same direction and both have checked into the Heartbreak Hotel.
Bitcoin was off nearly 1% to $30,251 as of Friday, May 20, according to CoinGecko, and down 17.4% from two weeks ago.
Ethereum was off 1% to $2,038.98, and 26% in the past 14 days, while dogecoin was off slightly to $0.086953, but it's fallen 33% in the last two weeks.
The crypto drama has been playing out across social media, with some trashing the whole concept and others steadfastly refusing to give up the ship.
"Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the real crypto crash probably hasn’t happened yet," one person tweeted. "Good luck to players involved."
"Look at you," another commenter said. "You’re saving every dollar you have from your little wage job to buy Bitcoins. “Dollar-Cost Average” “HODL” PATHETIC. How are you okay with your life being run by some price?"
HODL is a popular term among crypto enthusiasts meaning "hold on for dear life." And many of them seem ready to do just that, despite all the losses.
The billionaire and bitcoin evangelist Michael Saylor tweeted an animated image of him in a sailing ship and the caption "#Bitcoin is a sturdy ship to sail the Seas of Fate." Saylor's company, MicroStrategy (MSTR), is heavily invested in bitcoin.
'I Rarely Look at Prices'
"I rarely look at prices," another person said. "I find it hard to imagine a world without crypto. It’s inevitable. Find your conviction and you can bear any cycle."
Similar expressions appeared on Reddit, where one person said, "Doesn't bother me, just keep buying the dips. Nows the time to load up so when the market recovers I'm sitting on some nice profits."
"Its like walking into a jewelry and finding out everything is at 70% discount," said another person.
"but that necklace you're wearing is also 70% down in value," one Reddit commenter responded.
So-called stablecoins are designed to bring peace of mind to investors who are still reluctant to invest in crypto. The coins' values are pegged to stable reserve assets, like the U.S. dollar, the euro or gold.
That notion took a battering recently, however, when the stablecoin UST, also known as TerraUSD, and its token sister Luna, collapsed.
UST is an algorithmic stablecoin, so it is backed not by dollar reserves but rather by its sister asset Luna, which had to be burned, or permanently destroyed, through a computer code.
Social media was flooded with stories of financial ruin and concern about suicides following UST's cave-in.
"The #Cryptocrash is hilarious cuz the bros went from 'have fun staying poor, to 'it's not funny to laugh at people's misery.' " one person said.
'Long Live Crypto'
When millions of investors all wanted to redeem their tokens at the same time, UST lost its dollar peg. TerraUSD was down 89% at last check.
DEI, another algorithmic stablecoin, lost its its 1-to-1 peg to the dollar. It was off slightly to $0.591771 and down 41% from two weeks ago.
"I’m looking at this huge drop in prices for stocks/crypto as a opportunity to buy in low!" one person tweeted. "No doubt in my mind it will go back up and even higher!"
"You lowkey sound like you work for Coinbase lol," came one response.
Coinbase Global (COIN) is a cryptocurrency trading platform and this week the company said it was suspending the hiring of employees as it refocuses its priorities amid massive swings in its stock price.
"We’ve made an important decision to ensure we’re being rigorous in our resource prioritization so we can emerge from this down cycle even stronger than we are today," Emilie Choi, president and chief operating officer, said in a blog post.
The company, which is marking its 10th anniversary, went on the offensive recently, tweeting a new commercial that takes on the cryptocurrency doomsayers.
The 30-second spot shows a series of tweets going back to August 2012 all declaring crypto is dead while Frédéric Chopin’s funeral march from Piano Sonata No. 2 plays on.
"If we had a bitcoin for every time somebody said 'crypto is dead'…" the caption reads.
