A few weeks ago, my crypto friend (everyone has one) told me that he was “about ￡70,000 down”. He is what passes for middle class in London, and can presumably afford to lose ￡70,000, as he made it all from crypto over the past few years. Having unburdened himself of his losses, he started talking about buying the dip, which suggests he hasn’t totally lost the faith. Of course, set against the recent losses, he’s a minnow. It’s not just crypto, either. Mark Zuckerberg and Bernard Arnault have lost more than $40bn apiece so far this year, largely as a result of falling shares — a loss equivalent to the GDP of Serbia or Azerbaijan. The $22bn wealth of Forrest Li, Singapore’s richest man, fell 80 per cent in May, for similar reasons. That knocked him out of the world 500 rich list, as calculated by data group Bloomberg.

How do people cope with such losses? Those who have been around money for a long time often deal with it better, says Brad Klontz, a clinical psychologist who specialises in wealth. They will have diversified portfolios, which means it’s unlikely all their wealth will have been wiped out in one go, and will be happy to sit out the fall and pick up assets on the cheap. Nearly all of the biggest losers, incurred by people in various wealth rankings, fall into this category — paper losses that will eventually be offset by paper gains.

But, for those who have made millions very quickly, it may be a different story. Especially if they had used debt to magnify their gains — the process works in reverse when asset prices tumble, making the fallout much worse. They can become depressed, angry, even suicidal. “It depends on how much of their ego and self-worth is wrapped up in their net worth,” says Klontz.