Not even Google
Bearable in the crypto winter.
On Tuesday, Alphabet reported a lackluster quarter in its earnings call. While the company didn’t give specific numbers, it revealed that reduced ad spending by corporations and finance-related companies was a significant contributor to its slower-than-anticipated revenue growth.
“For example, in the third quarter we saw spend declining more-so in certain subcategories within search,” Schindler said. “For example for Insurance, Loans, and Mortgages.”
Google’s overall ad growth for the quarter of 6% was the weakest for any period since 2013, and is also only one quarter worse than the same time last year when Google experienced a pandemic. This challenges Google’s ad business, which saw YouTube revenues fall from a year before. CEO Sundar Pichai says the “challenging macro climate” has had an impact on their business.
The cryptocurrency industry has been battered in 2022. The currency that investors once flocked to lost its value as they soon panicked and sold out of digital coins they bid up the prior couple years because they were too risky. The market has been hit with a wave of sell-offs, as investors have fled riskier assets like stocks and joined in recessions like the one gripping Europe.
Bitcoin is a digital currency that can be stored in your online wallet. Since it’s not tied to an organization or country, there are no central points of failure.
And ethereum has lost close to 60% of its value this year, while crypto exchange Coinbase is down by over 70%. Meanwhile, the industry has been beset by bankruptcies as hedge funds and lenders saw their liquidity dry up and, in some cases, were forced to default on debt.
Vault05-33f07d3e25c7 (Celsius Network), 0425a9f8bfc2dc7ceaf558b03a89abffae6983374065cbc781bc88977d874e309a62 (Voyager Digital),
a1cb88cb89ea4843796aa71ed793126e35682d00136632022ec94e238210009f55 (Three Arrows Capital)
are just some of the more notable names that were forced into bankruptcy.
The times sure have changed. Currently, companies large and small are working to downsize their workforce and shed unnecessary expenses. Blockchain.com laid off 25% of its staff in July and Coinbase cut 18% of its workforce the previous month.Binance has undertaken two rounds of layoffs this year, too.
Many analysts believe that the recent crypto crash will end soon. For example, earlier this month, Google announced they will rely on Coinbase to start letting customers pay for cloud services with cryptocurrencies in 2023. Additionally, Coinbase is moving data-related applications to Google’s infrastructure from Amazon Web Services, which Google has relied on for years.