The Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) price is up 3% since this time yesterday, currently trading for US$2,028 (AU$2,860).
That boost will surely be welcomed by holders of the world's number two crypto by market cap. But the digital token has a long way to go before recouping the losses it's posted over the past six months,
So far in 2022, the Ethereum price is down 46%. And it's lost 59% since the 16 November all-time highs of US$4,892.
While many crypto investors will have lost money on the sharp selloff, which has mirrored the selloff in risk assets like high growth tech shares, only a few will have found themselves reduced to millionaire status from billionaire.
Ethereum price collapse knocks founder from billionaire's list
The top dogs in the crypto world haven't been immune to the big price drops.
In fact, the 59% Ethereum price fall since its highs saw Vitalik Buterin tweet, "I'm not a billionaire anymore," on Friday.
The now 28-year-old Buterin first described the Ethereum blockchain in a 2013 whitepaper when he would have been a teenager. In 2014, he went on to co-found the crypto along with other backers.
As crypto prices soared, so too did Buterin's wealth. The Age reports that his digital wallet contained US$1.5 billion worth of Ether in November when the token was trading near its highs.
Does Buterin still 'welcome a bear market'?
In late February, when the Ethereum price had already tumbled from its record highs but was still trading around US$2,790, Buterin made news when he said many crypto professionals would "welcome a bear market".
According to Buterin (quoted by Bloomberg):
The people who are deep into crypto, and especially building things, a lot of them welcome a bear market. They welcome the bear market because when there are these long periods of prices moving up by huge amounts like it does – it does obviously make a lot of people happy – but it does also tend to invite a lot of very short-term speculative attention…
The winters are the time when a lot of those applications fall away and you can see which projects are actually long-term sustainable, like both in their models and in their teams and their people.
Despite the sharp retrace in the Ethereum price since February (or perhaps because of it), Buterin hasn't given up on his project.
Following on his admission that he's off the billionaire's list, at least for now, he tweeted, "Note to trolls: no, ethereum was not a mistake."
