- The year 2022 staged several crypto-related events.
- From the TerraLUNA crash to the FTX fallout, the market zigzagged through dips.
- However, the metaverse and NFT sectors witnessed fruitful growth in 2022.
It is a well-known reality that the crypto/blockchain sector is witnessing all sorts of idiosyncratic advanced technology and related developments. From the bellwether Bitcoin to numerous altcoins, centralized to decentralized crypto exchanges, and Web 2.0 to Web 3.0, the crypto industry has become a pivotal part of the world economy.
Alongside these advantages, the crypto industry is also prone to several hackings, exchange collapses, fraudulent activities, macroeconomic factors, terrible market crashes, and many more.
As this year fades out, here is a short glimpse of the events that happened in the crypto industry in 2022.
January
The beginning of 2022 showcased a red signal for the crypto market as Bitcoin plunged to $32,000 from its all-time high of $68,915 in November 2021. The declining price of Bitcoin led crypto enthusiasts and newbies to buy more cryptocurrencies.
But, Bitcoin was twice the value it had in January 2021. However, as mentioned, the crypto bellwether declined at the end of January. The repercussions of this great loss continue as of this writing.
February
Another impact that made the crypto market nosedive is the Russia-Ukraine war that started in February. This massive terror led the market to slump steeply, and Bitcoin met another low.
During the war, several people and organizations stretched their hands to help the Ukrainians via crypto donations, According to news reports, the Ukrainian government and NGOs have raised over $63 million through 120,000 crypto donations. Besides, there were donations from NFTs, notably from CryptoPunk, which was worth over $200,000.
Major crypto addresses, namely Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot, TRON, Solana, and Dogecoin, had received donations of over $54 million.
In February, there was another interesting news surrounding the sportswear brand PUMA. The brand registered an ENS domain for its NFT collections and changed its Twitter handle to Puma.eth.
March
In March, the crypto market saw meager gains that helped Bitcoin hit back above $48,000.
Another extraordinary occurrence is about the next generation of Pokemon — Pixelmon AAA game metaverse project. This project saw immense dislike after the NFT characters in it appeared misshaped and disfigured. The unattractive shapes of Pixelmon characters were contrary to the expectations of metaverse enthusiasts.
April
Coinbase released the beta version of its NFT marketplace in April. This process allows anyone to check out the first versions of the NFT collections and explore them on the Ethereum blockchain. Also, the beta version opened up the service of buying and selling NFTs on the Coinbase NFT marketplace.
In the same month, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) lost over $14 million in NFTS after hackers attacked its Instagram account and Discord server. This was a great loss for the NFT industry.
However, there was positive news for the NFT sector. Moonbirds NFT surged after it achieved $200 million worth of sales. This resulted in a hike in Moonbirds’ trading volume.
May
May was really a catastrophe in the anecdotes of the crypto industry. The crypto market saw a big price crash after the Terra LUNA and TerraUSD/UST stablecoin collapsed. On May 9, TerraUSD decoupled and went down to $0.11. This tragic fall toppled the price of all cryptocurrencies. At this time, Bitcoin plunged to $26,000 from $40,000.
Following the incident, the CEO of Terra Labs, Do Kwon, was reportedly missing. Before the LUNA crash, over $2 billion in UST was retrieved (unstaked) from Anchor Protocol, and millions of UST were sold. In addition to this, rising interest rates and suspected malicious attacks on Terra’s ecosystem are the expected reasons for the collapse.
June
Before the global crypto community was relieved from the Terra collapse, another incident occurred when the crypto firm 3 Arrows Capital (3AC) went bankrupt in June. 3AC plummeted due to the knock-on effect of the Terra LUNA fallout.
By the end of June, the crypto market had diminished to billions from trillions, and Bitcoin saw another major dip at $17,000.
Move-to-Earn web3 lifestyle app STEPN earned a name in the NFT field by initiating several NFT-oriented schemes for people. After hitting half a million followers on Twitter, STEPN conducted a giveaway of $1.5 million worth of NFT (50 pairs of BNBChain Genesis Sneakers).
July
This month saw a major twist in the crypto Twitter. Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk announced a bid of $44 billion for the Twitter acquisition.
Adding to the metaverse news, Walt Disney revealed its first new cruise ship, the Disney Wish. The ship has an interactive space that amalgamates the physical and digital worlds to open a space for the metaverse.
August
Crypto startup Nomad lost over $200 million after a security exploit. After this hack happened, Nomad announced that it was offering hackers a bounty of up to 10%. The purpose of this offer is to retrieve user funds.
Adding to the hackathon, nearly 8,000 digital wallets linked to Solana were exploited, and $5.2 million in coins, including SOL, were drained off in August.
Another crypto news in August was related to the partnership between Coinbase and American investment company BlackRock. This would help the investment firm give institutional clients access to Bitcoin.
Notably, Hodlnaut, a Singaporean crypto company, halted withdrawals, swaps, and deposits due to poor market conditions.
September
A significant bloom in the crypto industry happened with the launch of the Ethereum proof of stake (PoS) merge on September 15. Previously, Ethereum followed a proof of work (PoW) consensus mechanism.
This transition depicts the original Ethereum Mainnet merging with a separate proof of stake (PoS) blockchain called the Beacon chain, now existing as one chain. Also, the Merge reduces the energy consumption of Ethereum by 99.95%.
Another fascinating pitch for the NFT sector was the launch of PUMA Metaverse sneakers and NFTs. The NFT collections were revealed during New York Fashion Week on PUMA’s metaverse project called Black Station.
Adding on Doodles NFT collection raised $54 million at a $704 million valuation. This high-rate fundraising occurs in between the crypto market slump.
Wintermute, a leading algorithmic market maker (AMM), was hacked for $160 million. Hackers carried out this attack by enabling a defect in Profanity’s algorithm and targeting the private keys of users.
October
Finally, in October, Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion and started reigning the social media platform with vital changes. Musk initially fired top executives of Twitter, including the then CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, and the head of the legacy, Vijaya Gadde.
On-chain data tracker Chainalysis reported that October is the worst month for DeFi protocol hacks in 2022. Nearly $718 million has been stolen in October alone.
Credit Suisse bank restructured its strategy which will include substantial execution risk to establish a more integrated economic goal for its shareholders.
November
The month of November invited a significant pain point to the history of the crypto market. The fallout of the FTX crypto exchange catalyzed the crypto market, and major cryptocurrencies saw a huge dip. The collapse of FTX was due to bankruptcy as its founder, Sam-Bankman-Fried (SBF), used billions of FTX tokens from customer funds to compensate for investment losses at Alameda Research.
During this catastrophe, Bitcoin was hovering at $15,000 and has continued this downtrend as of this writing. Also, in November, there were shock waves related to the FTX fallout in the crypto industry, and the majority of news stories and Twitter comments were related to the FTX.
Additionally, several crypto industries have laid off their employees, which is anticipated due to the fall of FTX.
December
On December 12, Bahamas police arrested Sam Bankman-Fried after US prosecutors filed criminal charges against him. Reportedly, Bankman-Fried is now on $250 million bail.
A report by Solidus Labs, a crypto market integrity platform, states that hackers used more than 1,17,629 scam tokens on-chain in the first 11 months of 2022, which is a 40% increase when compared to the past year.
Another important story that happened in December is about the ongoing SEC vs. Ripple lawsuit. The final result of the case will be discussed and revealed in 2023. Currently, both the SEC and Ripple have filed their final submissions.
Meanwhile, Ripple showed minor wins when the presiding judge of the US court overruled SEC’s attempt to hold the documents related to former Division Director William Hinman.
In a nutshell, the year 2022 served the crypto industry mostly with more strings of fallouts than hopes. Although opening the door to 2023 is optimistic for many investors, some experts grip on to the assumption that the crypto market will see another plunge in the future. However, the metaverse, NFT, and DeFi sectors are growing amid the crypto winter, and several companies are stretching their hands in virtual realities and the blockchain industry.
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