Bitcoin advocate Michael Saylor says 'Never sell your Bitcoin' as the crypto market faces a 'long crypto winter'

The crypto market faced a major sell-off early Monday with the majority of digital assets taking a huge hit.

Major crypto market sell-off early Monday saw over $2.2B in bullish crypto positions liquidated within 24 hours. Taking to X, renowned economist and Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff highlighted the crypto market downturn while issuing a seeming warning of a "long crypto winter."

In a tweet, Schiff pointed out Bitcoin’s 7% and Ethereum's 33% decline, stating: "In case you haven't noticed, Bitcoin is down 7% tonight, trading just above $93,000, but Ethereum is crashing. It's down 20%, trading below $2,500, but an hour ago it hit $2,100, down about 33% in one night! It looks like Punxsutawney Phil was right about that long crypto winter."

Schiff’s comments refer to the famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, who "predicts" whether winter will continue or end early each year. In another tweet, Schiff doubled his bearish outlook, saying: "Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today. That means it's going to be a long crypto winter."

While Schiff's usual skepticism remains bearish on the crypto markets, Bitcoin advocate and MicroStrategy Chairman Michael Saylor took a different stance. In response to the market drop, Saylor tweeted: "Never sell your Bitcoin."

Crypto market sell-off

Macroeconomic concerns spurred a sell-off on cryptocurrency markets at the start of the week, with most digital assets heading for their largest two-day decline in over three years.

Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, suffered its worst drop in nearly four years on Monday as investors reduced risk. Ethereum fell as much as 27% to $2,150 on Monday morning, its steepest intra-day drop in percentage terms since May 19, 021, before trimming losses. Other cryptocurrencies were also affected by the sell-off, with Bitcoin down nearly 6% at one point.

After gaining since early November, nearly all of the top digital tokens are now down significantly for the year.

Ethereum was trading at $2,564, while Bitcoin was at $95,463. The crypto market’s total value plummeted by nearly $360 billion on Monday, according to CoinGecko data.