Bitcoin had a strong start in 2024, reaching an all-time high in January following interest rate cuts and the federal government’s embrace of the crypto industry. But all of those gains have been decimated over the past few weeks. And while that’s tough news for many digital asset holders, the decline has prompted some investors to wonder: is now a good time to buy the dip? 

Despite the industry’s seemingly favorable prospects under President Donald Trump, Bitcoin has dumped nearly 30% of its value since he took office, falling to a low of $78,000 earlier this month. Even as Trump follows through on a number of crypto-related promises—including establishing a national Ethereum exchange-traded funds, tells Fortune. “But I think that’s created this opportunity for investors.”  

To invest or not to invest?

The fact that Bitcoin has dipped does not mean that everyone should start buying crypto. In fact, digital assets have many detractors, who point to its recent arrival on the financial scene, volatility, and history of scams. 

“My position is that cryptocurrencies are impossible to value,” Artie Green, a certified financial planner from California, told Fortune. “We can determine the value of stocks, bonds, BDCs, etc. but cryptocurrencies are purely speculative.” 

He advises anyone interested in crypto investing to take stock of their finances first, make sure they have a buffer for unexpected expenses, and only invest excess funds. “The only way I would recommend buying Bitcoin is if you first create a comprehensive financial plan that determines how much money you will need to pay for all your living expenses & goals for the rest of your life,” he said. 

For people who do want to invest, there are several factors to consider before actually making a purchase, including technical sophistication and risk appetite. Those who don’t want to be involved in active trading should consider an exchange-traded fund (ETF)—a financial product sold on the traditional stock market which tracks the asset’s price. Major institutions like BlackRock and Fidelity offer Bitcoin ETFs to investors, but there are also crypto-specific ETF issuers like Grayscale and Bitwise. 

“There are lots of ways to invest in Bitcoin and crypto, and there are no necessarily wrong answers,” says Zach Pandl, managing director of research at crypto asset manager Grayscale. “Investors should first consider their own circumstances before making that decision.”

For people who want to actively trade their crypto, owning Bitcoin directly through a crypto exchange gives investors more flexibility and control over their holdings. Crypto exchanges like Kraken and Coinbase allow investors to buy, sell, trade and store their crypto, but the exchange maintains control of investors’ assets for them. The downside is that investors are more vulnerable if an exchange mismanages its funds like FTX, or is hacked like ByBit. 

Self-custody wallets like Metamask or Coinbase Wallet allow investors to actively use their crypto in trading and maintain control of their assets. However, this requires an understanding of blockchain technology. And there is the added problem of remembering logins: there is no “forgot my password” option to retrieve the funds. 

How much should you invest in Bitcoin?

People who do want to buy Bitcoin should think carefully about how much they want to invest. 

Crypto analysts and financial advisors have varying opinions on this topic. BlackRock, one of the world’s largest traditional asset managers, recommends that investors allocate no more than 2% of their portfolio to Bitcoin, saying that this amount maximizes returns while limiting the risks associated with volatility. 

Crypto-focused investment platforms, however, are more liberal, arguing Bitcoin is a great addition to an investment portfolio because it acts as a diversifying asset therefore, investors should allocate a larger percentage of their portfolio to the currency. Grayscale, a crypto ETF issuer, recommends allocating 5% and Swan, a Bitcoin-focused investment firm, recommends allocating up to 10% to Bitcoin. 

And moving forward, some crypto-watchers believe that the current dip won’t last much longer. James Butterfill, the head of research at crypto asset manager CoinShares, expects the currency to stabilize soon. 

“We’re getting close to that peak bearishness,” he said, adding that Bitcoin “seems to be showing quite a lot of resistance at around the $80,000 level.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

• Ellen Pompeo believed her $20 million annual salary on Grey’s Anatomy to be celebrated as a win for equal pay, but was warned before her 2018 Hollywood Reporter interview went live that not everyone would support her success. Pompeo highlights the double standard in how women’s earnings are scrutinized compared to men’s, while emphasizing the importance of using her financial power to uplift others.

When Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo confirmed she was being paid more than $20m a year for her work on the show, she hoped it would be celebrated as evidence of equal pay coming to Hollywood.

However, before The Hollywood Reporter interview—which revealed Pompeo’s $575,000 an episode income, plus a seven-figure signing bonus and equity points in the series estimated to be worth $13m—went live, Pompeo was warned by her manager that she may not get exclusively positive feedback.

At the time, Pompeo told the Reporter the deal had been struck as she took on the solo lead role of the medical drama, named after her character.

“I’ve finally gotten to the place where I’m OK asking for what I deserve,” Pompeo said at the time.

But in a recent podcast interview with Alex Cooper’s ‘Call Her Daddy’, Pompeo reflected that she hadn’t considered her success wouldn’t be celebrated by her peers.

She explained: “My manager said at the time something to me that literally hit me like a brick. He said: ‘Are you ready to be unpopular?’ He was like: ‘I don’t want you to think that everyone’s going to go in and cheer for you and clap for you and bow to you, and think you’re the dopest ever, cause there’s going to be a lot of people who are not happy for you.’

“That had never occurred to me … That was good prep for me because it’s true that not everybody—and other women have said [this] publicly—like generally it’s hard for people to celebrate other people if they have something that resembles something they want.”

Her sentiments were echoed by Cooper, who herself was subject to scrutiny when it was revealed she had signed at least a $60m contract to move her podcast from Barstool to Spotify.

Cooper again made headlines when her three-year deal with Spotify came to an end, and she signed a $125m deal with SiriusXM to bring her growing media empire—Unwell—to the new platform.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to get comfortable with the number being out there,” Cooper said. “My first contract when the number was leaked, I was … so proud that people know because it stands for so much. But then you get this wave of negativity, and I say it all the time … that men just do not experience this level of scrutiny when it comes to money.

“You have Jeff Bezos and Elon and Trump and all of these men get to just fucking shit money in front of our faces and everyone thinks it’s hot and powerful. And then the minute we get any of it—not even in the ballpark, we’re just lightly getting a part of the conversation—it’s like: ‘She doesn’t deserve that. Either she’s a bitch, she’d found a way to maneuver it cause she”s not worth that. And it’s a lot.”

Pompeo added: “It’s patriarchy and it’s misogyny.”

A network of power

It seems Hollywood is no different from the myriad of other industries that have a gender pay gap—in 2019, a study found that female stars, on average, earn $1.1m less than their male co-stars of similar experience.

Not only was Pompeo defying the norm by revealing her income, but she was also bucking the trend by being so highly paid as a woman.

And she’s keen to make her influence count, she added: “What helps me is to … take myself out of it. When you make a lot of money as a woman, let’s face it, you have power. So how can I take that power and do good with it? How can I amplify someone else? How can I lift up someone else who doesn’t sit in the position of privilege that I sit in?”

Pompeo added that she doesn’t try to control the reaction of others and instead focuses on “using your power for good.”

Backing up value with data is also a lesson Pompeo has learned and encouraged others to do the same.

She explained: “I don’t want anything that I don’t deserve, I don’t want anything that I haven’t worked for. The CAA (Creative Arts Agency) print out a report … and they let you know exactly how you move the needle.

“I see exactly how much Grey’s Anatomy makes for ABC Disney, I get to see the number. Then it’s my face, it’s my voice, I’ve done so much work promoting the show all over the world for the past 20 years …. I have the data to back [it] up. I know the show generated this much money, I definitely deserve a percentage of that.”

“It is challenging for women to advocate for themselves in different disputations and jobs because if you cannot quantity how what you do contributes to the income of that company, it’s harder to fight for yourself and say I deserve this.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

There is now very little room for subtext or doubt. Relations between the U.S. and Russia will include “enormous economic deals” as part of the broader normalization of diplomatic affairs between Moscow and Washington.

That optimistic phrase, turbocharged by the expression “huge upside,” was part of the White House’s summary of Tuesday’s call between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

What started as a suggestion—would U.S. sanctions relief be on the table if Trump helped resolve the war on Ukraine?—is now a megaphone-strength alert. A stable conclusion to hostilities, whether a cease-fire or a more elaborate peace agreement, would bring an end to the Russia’s economic isolation.

To be clear, this move is further off than suggested in a breathy White House readout of the two-hour call between Trump and Putin. And the U.S. is not the only country punishing Russia politically and economically. But this is the clearest statement we have yet on Washington’s intentions. More than a few U.S. companies will take this message and run with it.

The business community began to imagine a world without sanctions on Russia when Trump won the November 2024 elections. He campaigned on ending the war in Ukraine, triggering questions about the longevity of sanctions imposed following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. History shows that sanctions are easy to enact and then notoriously sticky. The U.S. has been sanctioning Cuba since 1962.

But Trump’s campaign pledge is gaining a certain amount of momentum. Talks to end the war began in earnest with a phone call between Trump and Putin in February. Shortly after that, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met in Riyadh. As they departed the talks, they made a public nod to broader commercial engagement between the two countries.

Each of those moves intensified debate among U.S. companies that left Russia three years ago. Should we go back? Some businesses are having the conversation.

Hundreds of Western companies, including some of the U.S.’s most prominent brands, left Russia following the start of the full-scale invasion. Some left because sanctions made it illegal for them to do business there. Others left because their shareholders, customers, or employees wouldn’t support doing business in or with an aggressor nation. Wide public campaigns to name and shame Western companies in Russia helped focus the minds of executives in the U.S. and around the world.

Tuesday’s Trump-Putin dialogue will intensify deliberations inside U.S. companies. For some of them, sanctions relief is the sole green light they need to go back to Russia. But an end of sanctions is not the end of the discussion. It should be the beginning.

As Tuesday’s call showed, Putin is in no hurry to end the war. His strategic goal remains fully disabling Ukrainian sovereignty. As Trump and Putin negotiate an “unconditional cease-fire,” Putin only adds conditions. These talks will not end soon.

If and when they do, companies thinking of returning to Russia will find a country dramatically different from the one they left. The war on Ukraine has lasted longer than anyone predicted—long enough to see a number of important transformations on the ground in Russia.

Among those changes is the emergence of a new business elite now in possession not only of considerable political favor, but also of several Western assets sold or otherwise “reallocated” away from their former owners. Sure, some U.S. companies inserted buy-back clauses into their exits from Russia, but it is worth questioning the durability of those agreements.

The marketplace has changed, too. While the West was away, companies from non-sanctioning countries came to play. Russian car dealerships once offering sparkling new Volkswagens and Toyotas, among others, are now selling flashy Chinese models.

The law on the ground in Russia has changed, too. Intellectual property law, for example, has been eviscerated. Russian pharmaceutical companies now have government licenses to produce semaglutide injections, in complete contravention to Novo Nordisk’s patents on the drug.

Novo Nordisk is, of course, a Danish company, and relations between Europe and Russia remain hostile. This raises another complication: If the U.S. is determined to lift sanctions but Europe remains, for now, in punishment mode, how will companies navigate an asymmetrical sanctions environment? EU sanctions could, of course tumble too. They depend on periodic, unanimous renewal votes.

Finally, the U.S. business community will want to know whether Trump’s ambitious forecast for normalcy with Russia will include a backstop. Political risk insurance for companies returning to Russia will be astronomically expensive, if it is available at all. Will the White House act as an insurer of last resort, and throw its political weight behind U.S. companies if conditions once again deteriorate?

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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