The Kraken founder says that the Bitcoin (BTC) halving, which will likely take place sometime in the first half of next year, could be the next bullish catalyst for crypto markets.

“It’s just a massive hit to lose $10 billion in capital from this industry. To have that just stolen away, that could’ve gone to great stuff and moved this industry forward. So that’s going to take some time to recover from.

Obviously, prices are depressed as a result of all this as well, so I think we’re going into an even deeper bear market winter. It might be protracted, we don’t have another Bitcoin halving until March 2024. It’s going to be some time, and I think that’s sort of the next kind of big event that might cause us to bounce out of a bear market.”

Powell says that bad actors and unfortunate events will continue to happen to crypto, but he remains bullish on the long-term prospects of the industry.

“I think unfortunately, it’s the same story as it kind of has been for the industry for the last 11 years that I’ve been in it, which is we got to keep marching up this hill, maybe we got to sprint up this hill for a while to recover some ground. But this is a war, and it’s a marathon and I don’t think we’re going to be able to rest on our laurels as an industry.

I think there will continue to be bad actors that come in that we have to get out. There’s going to continue to be blows against the industry, and misleading information out there. Ultimately I think we got to remember why crypto is here in the first place, and that’s to deliver Bitcoin and financial freedom basically to the whole world.”