Crypto winter: Why this bitcoin bear market is different from the past

Crypto loans - particularly those in decentralized-finance apps that dispense with intermediaries like banks - often require borrowers to put up more collateral than the loan is worth

For a generation of alienated techies, crypto's all-for-one ethos was its biggest draw. Now panic is spreading across this universe — and that same ethos is posing what may be the biggest threat yet to its survival.

What started this year in crypto markets as a “risk-off” bout of selling fueled by a Federal Reserve suddenly determined to rein in excesses has exposed a web of interconnectedness that looks a little like the tangle of derivatives that brought down the global financial system in 2008. As Bitcoin slipped almost 70% from its record high, a panoply of altcoins also plummeted.