GM Readers!📪 It's BitDegree Insider, and let's get it on with the penultimate newsletter of 2022.
⭐️Today's selection:
- 🎬2022 RECAP
- 🧩Quiz Thursday
- 👌Selected Meme of The Day
- 📰Bite-Sized News
2022 RECAP
Year's almost over. It's time to run through the industry-shaking, history-forming, rules-redefining events that made 2022 so ehhmmm... special.
Let's divide the year into four quarters and take a look at things that mattered during each of them. So, without any further ado, let's jump into the first quarter of the year.
Q1: January, February, March
The year kicked off in high spirits, and in... high numbers. The very first five days of 2022 brought us the peak of crypto market cap.
On January 3rd, 2022, crypto market cap reached the colossal heights of $2.3 TRILLION.
Just compare it with today's $830 billion. High hopes for the remaining of the year were set. Optimism was in the air.
Naturally, this positive energy fuelled people to venture into other areas and make them profitable. Savvy cryptoheads realized that it's time for NFTs to shine.
Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club, acquired CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs.
And the sentiment only grew, as Yuga Labs dominated the most expensive NFT sales of the entire year.
For example, on the 12th of February, CryptoPunk #5822 (the blue guy in the pic above) was sold for a whopping $23.7 million (8000 ETH).
Things looked promising. The numbers were GRANDIOSE.
In January, NFTs hit their peak by reaching a $17 billion in volume traded. The goldmine was buzzing 24/7.
Everything made sense, and nocoiners had every reason to feel as if they were really missing out. But good times don't last forever.
Q2: April, May, June
Staggering NFT success inspired others. NFT collections were spawning one after another.
Moonbirds were among the most noticeable and influential newcomers to the market. Suddenly hexagon-shaped owl pics arrived in the Twitter jungle.
But the hunger was in the air. Web3 was promising so much more. People wanted something else, something new. And they got it. They got NFT sneakers.
'Move 2 Earn!', announced Stepn, a fitness app who came up with the idea that people could start earning crypto for simply walking, jogging, and running.
To make it work, people had to buy the aforementioned NFT sneakers, and hit the road. Green Satoshi Token (GST) was the particular crypto that was promised as the reward.
While the market was already entering ambiguous sentiment, Stepn continued to rise in value for several months until it reached its peak.
But eventually... the GST, the token that people were getting for walking, collapsed, with its value falling from $8 to less than $0.1.
It killed the hopes of both crypto and non-crypto audiences - everyone who decided to partake in the Stepn journey was left with nothing.
Nevertheless, Stepn's success inspired a wave of Move/Walk 2 Earn movement.
New apps, programs, ideas were developed, suggested, implemented... But no one has broken Stepn's record yet. But then...
Someone knocked on the door. And it was... Do Kwon.
Terra Luna crash steamrolled the entire crypto ecosystem. It's estimated that it wiped out approximately $60 billion from the crypto market.
Everyone was losing their money, just as they were losing their minds.
The crypto industry suffered a painful blow. People realized that just because it's called 'stablecoin', it doesn't mean it's actually stable.
But judging from today's perspective... It was only the beginning.
Q3: July, August, September
As time went by... Crypto Lenders got more and more media attention. For negative reasons.
Most infamous crypto lenders were 3AC (Three Arrows Capital), and Celsius Network. It's thanks to them many people learned what 'Insolvency' means.
Their problems began in July, and they only got worse.
Insolvency, frozen withdrawals, filing for chapter 11, bankruptcy... These words suddenly got trendy. For negative reasons, again.
Soon after, the Tornado Cash earthquake erupted.
On August 8, the now infamous crypto mixing service got blacklisted by the US Treasury Department.
Tornado Cash were accused of allowing their users to anonymously launder billions of dollars.
Notably, North Korean hackers were among the ones who used Tornado Cash for this exact purpose.
This caused a furore about how intrusive the state can be, and whether such actions threaten the future of DeFi. Yet the ban remains.
But then the time has come for the Big News. The news so big, that the event was dubbed 'the most important crypto event in history'. It's Vitalik time.
We're talking about The Merge, of course. The long-awaited, and continuously-postponed event finally took place.
The second-biggest blockchain swapped the entire network's consensus mechanism from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake.
This reduced the blockchain's energy consumption by 99.95%, and made Ethereum the blockchain star of the year.
People were hoping for ETH price to skyrocket, but, unfortunately, the bear market with all the wounds inflicted by the Terra Luna crash was still here.
Those who awaited a miracle, were left disappointed.
Yet the team behind Ethereum proved that they're not distracted by external blows, and they're willing to continue building and improving the DeFi future.
Q4: October, November, December
The merge brought a sense of stability and progress back into the market. Even though things were down, and the bear market was definitely here, hope was flickering.
And then... SBF said 'hello'.
A lot has been said and written about it. Yet it's quite obvious that FTX collapse was the most impactful event of the crypto year.
It caused a cascade of liquidations since they had hundreds of units and investments in many projects (such as Solana that we described here).
The FTX/Alameda Research drama took over the internet. New details, new accusations, new subtle elements of the FTX iceberg were popping up with each passing day.
People realised that if something like FTX can fall... Then how can one be sure about... every other crypto exchange?
Clouds of FUD started shrouding around almost every company. Discourses about proof of reserves began. Everyone received a painful reality check.
But... there were positive updates as well. Inspiring even. For example, Reddit reached a stunning result of 5 million people becoming Reddit NFT Avatar holders.
This meant new people coming into the web3 world. And they brought their knowledge, enthusiasm, and insights with them. A refreshing update when the landscape was dark.
And, what is even more, the blockchain world welcomed a new name. Aptos launched their mainnet and organised a successful Airdrop. This was revitalising, this was good.
So these were the most attention-grabbing events of the year.
But... This list doesn't include hacks. it's because... they were happening on regular basis... haha...(*laughs in tears*). But here are the largest hacks of the year:
- Ronin Network: $625 million (March)
- Wormhole: $325 million (February)
- Nomad Bridge: $190 million (August)
- Wintermute: $162 million (September)
- Mango Markets: $114 million (October)
- BNB Chain: $100 million (October)
Including other, less significant exploits, more than $4 billion were lost due to hacks. And if you go into details, the numbers can get interesting.
There have been over 50 thefts of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs alone. This constituted losses worth ten of millions. And we're not even talking about other NFT collections.
Talking about losses, some people lost more than others. And some people lost the most. Here are the top 3 winners of the 'who lost the most in 2022?' Olympics:
- Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, lost $82 billion.
- Sam Bankman-Fried, Former CEO of FTX, lost $23 billion.
- Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, lost $4.7 billion.
So, the big names, the fat pockets suffered heavy losses. They can afford to lose a lot of money.
But the vortex of 2022 was too tough for many projects to survive. According to a report by RootData, 97 blockchain projects 'died' this year.
Reason? The FTX + Terra Luna combo.
And the financial hardships of the entire industry are super-evident when you see how much the investments in crypto decreased throughout the year. Take a look:
It's the second half of the year when everyone realized that the tough times are definitely here. That's the reason behind the losses, failures, bankruptcies, and closures.
Nevertheless, the industry didn't give up. What didn't kill it, made it stronger. Lessons were learnt, new aims were established.
This GIF shows clearly how the blockchains kept themselves busy by attracting new active developers.
And this number did not decrease in 2022. It outgrew what we had in 2021. The industry is wounded, but it's not giving up.
Because crypto is here to say. Just like Bitcoin. How many times has it already been pronounced 'dead'?
27 times in 2022 alone. (27 popular media publications or opinion columns have been counted by '99Bitcoins', who collect these 'Bitcoin obituaries').
So here you go. That's definitely a wrap. This year was completely bonkers. But here we are. And we're looking forward to 2023.
Because, at its very essence, this is still the very beginning of the web3/crypto/NFT/DeFI journey. And you're already onboard!
Here, take this medal, you deserve it 🏅
QUIZ THURSDAY
Okay. Read hard, play hard. You've done the reading part, let's get on with the festivities. It's Thursday after all, and it means only one thing. Let's go solving puzzles.
Here's the BitDegree Christmas card. And instructions are clear. And the watermark doesn't count :)
SELECTED MEME OF THE DAY
BITE-SIZED NEWS
- For the First Time in Nearly Two Years, Solana (SOL) Price Drops Below $10. Requiem for Solana?
- Alameda Research-Related Crypto Wallets Swapped and Mixed Over $1.7 Million. That feel when $1.7 doesn't look that much anymore.
- Oregon DFR Urges Investors to "Do Their Homework" Before Investing in Crypto. DYOR, DYOR, DYOR.
With close to a decade of experience in the FinTech industry, Aaron understands all of the biggest issues and struggles that crypto enthusiasts face. He’s a passionate analyst who is concerned with data-driven and fact-based content, as well as that which speaks to both Web3 natives and industry newcomers.
Aaron is the go-to person for everything and anything related to digital currencies. With a huge passion for blockchain & Web3 education, Aaron strives to transform the space as we know it, and make it more approachable to complete beginners.
Aaron has been quoted by multiple established outlets, and is a published author himself. Even during his free time, he enjoys researching the market trends, and looking for the next supernova.