Citigroup’s forecast that bitcoin could reach US$300,000 by December 2021 ultimately proved to be no more than wishful thinking. The year 2022 has clearly shown that there are two sides to bitcoin, and right now the cryptocurrency market’s dangerous volatility is in clear view.Since its all-time high of US$68,649.05 in November 2021, the digital currency has plunged in 2022 as investors exit riskier assets in the face of worldwide inflation and increasing economic uncertainty.Even Tesla has recently moved to shorten its position in cryptocurrency. In its Q2 earnings statement, the company reported, “As of the end of Q2, we have converted approximately 75% of our Bitcoin purchases into fiat currency.” Greg Taylor, chief investment officer at Purpose Investments, told INN, “It certainly is not acting as much of a risk diversifier as some had thought when they called it digital gold — it's acting more like a risk-on asset.”It seems the market may be in the middle of a “crypto winter,” a phrase born out of the Game of Thrones warning “winter is coming.” Much like Westeros, the crypto landscape is under threat of sweeping chaos. “The crypto market was already feeling the effect of world events, especially the Russia-Ukraine conflict that caused turmoil in global finance,” noted Igor Zakharov, CEO of DBX Digital Ecosystem, as reported by Forbes. He also pointed to rising inflation and interest rates as a critical force in crushing the crypto market.Bitcoin isn't the only digital asset frozen out by the encroaching crypto winter. “By the time TerraUSD and Luna collapsed and set in motion a domino effect in the crypto world, crypto winter had already begun,” Zakharov said. Other cryptocurrencies, such as ethereum and litecoin, have also dropped sharply.Another factor in why crypto is down is that digital assets tend to trade on sentiment, which can be highly susceptible to herd mentality. Rising prices illicit a FOMO response and investors begin piling in, further driving up prices. However, the opposite also holds true. Significant price drops can spark a selling frenzy as investors smell blood in the water, and downturns can deepen rather quickly."That's when it gets scary for people because, if enough people head for the exit, there's no floor. There's nothing to stop it trading at $10,000 tomorrow, if enough people give up or are forced to sell," Financial Times markets editor Katie Martin told the BBC in a recent interview. However, those with more of a long-term investment approach see this latest fall of in crypto prices as just another valley before an eventual peak, and are carefully timing their entries.Gareth Soloway of InTheMoneyStocks.com may be among the crypto bears for the short term, but he runs with the crypto bulls when it comes to the market’s longer-term outlook. In a June 2022 interview with INN, Soloway said US$100,000, US$500,000 or even US$1 million bitcoin could be in the cards in five to 10 years."I'm a huge bull on it, I just wasn't going to pay up at US$65,000 when all my charts and all my probabilities were telling me it was going to go to US$20,000 or sub-US$20,000," he said.