Cryptocurrency has arrived. This April, Fidelity became the first major retirement plan provider

to allow everyday people to invest in Bitcoin with their retirement accounts.

The fact that a regulated traditional high-status financial institution is telling you, hey, buy some of this stuff, right?

Gives it some of the stamp of approval that is not present in one of these traditionally, like,

kind of sketchy-sounding crypto exchanges.

That's Anthony Lee Zhang.

He teaches finance at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business.

He says this move by Fidelity signaled a major

shift in how traditional financial institutions view cryptocurrency.

The past cycles, I think somewhat more involved, kinds of people that were more on the fringes

of traditional finance, right? And this cycle, you see everyone getting in. And then crypto crashed.

What we do know is that even for those diehard Bitcoin supporters who were used to volatility,

the last 74 hours were a very rough ride. In just one month from April to May, nearly $1 trillion of value in the crypto sector just vanished.

Bitcoin dropped to below $20,000 for the first time in years.

Now, volatility is nothing new to cryptocurrency markets,

but with many more regular investors putting their life savings

into crypto over the last few years, a lot of people will end up getting hurt by this crash.

Now, investors are worried that we've entered a crypto winter. That's when crypto values fall

and stay low for a long period of time. Has the bubble

finally burst for cryptocurrency or is the future of money just delayed? According to one argument,

there's a four-year cycle just built into cryptocurrencies and we're just getting to the ugly part.

An answer could come from traditional financial investors.

...