2022 is one of the worst years the crypto industry has ever faced in its whole existence; in fact, to call the year negative or a disaster is a lesser rating. 2022 was a year that caused the major turmoils witnessed in the crypto market for a very long time. Many feared this would end the crypto industry — Even some crypto enthusiasts had to reevaluate their beliefs in the industry.
Some new kids on the block had one of the major shockers and probably began to think that the crypto industry is not the right place to make money. Even those who had believed in crypto being the next financial system are currently rechecking if it is still possible.
With the year rounding off, many people are praying that a year like 2022 should never be witnessed again — Here are the major crypto stories that rocked a disastrous 2022.
Crypto Enthusiasts Donate to Ukraine
The first two months of 202 started with growing tensions about whether Vladimir Putin would invade Ukraine. He later did in February, giving one of the worst crypto success stories. At this moment, despite the war, crypto showed it is the future of the financial sector.
With many of the banks in Ukraine closed, crypto donations were the only way to show sympathy to Ukraine by sending them some funds to support themselves. The government officials even provided official Bitcoin and other crypto wallets that people can send crypto.
Ottawa Protests
The Ottawa protests led to many emergency rules and laws against those instigating the protest against the government. The protest, which started as a mild agitation, eventually turned illegal on Feb 9.
To fund the protests, GoFundMes were launched, and donations were made in Bitcoins. However, the Ontario government quickly placed restraints to freeze the accounts of those that participated in the donations.
The government strictly implemented the Emergency Act in February. This ensured that those connected to the protest had their bank account frozen, which also led to the freezing of several crypto wallets traced to the protests.
Biden Issues Crypto Regulation Order
Crypto regulation has been a long-debated topic in the crypto industry; many support it, while others feel it goes against the original beliefs of the blockchain. But on the other hand, many people and companies say that regulating the industry would help many believe in the crypto's potential.
President Biden took the latter's advice and issued an executive order that revolved around regulating the crypto industry. The order, despite being issued in the beginning months of the year, has changed some of the outlooks of the crypto industry.
$550 Million Drained from Ronin Network
This was where crypto horror stories began and continued till the end of the year; obviously, 2022 was filled with horror stories rather than crypto success stories. Hacks and scams are one of the issues in the crypto industry, but the ones that happened in 2022 alone were over the scale.
Axie Infinity and SLP, some of the leading blockchain games in the crypto industry, lost their trust as many affected by the hack spread the news about the Ronin Network hack. The hack ensured that the hackers made away with close to $550 million and the worst thing was that the Ronin Network team only knew after six days.
Terra Collapse
This was another major highlight of the crypto industry that made many people reevaluate why and what they believed in the crypto industry. Terra was a high-cap crypto ecosystem with a stablecoin known as UST or TerraUSD.
However, because of a lack of proper collateralization, a lot of things went wrong with the stablecoin leading to one of the worst crypto catastrophes of all time. This crypto horror story will forever haunt those involved for a long time.
Celsius Bankruptcy
Another catastrophe that led to the downfall of other businesses in the crypto industry; was when a major financial company in the crypto industry was declared insolvent. Celsius called for bankruptcy on the 12th of June, which led to a negative chain reaction in other crypto industry companies.
Companies such as Aave, Maker, and Compound took the hardest blow of insolvency because of this event, which even led to the bankruptcy of Three Arrows. It caused a chain reaction among other companies because many others depended on it as a crypto lending company.
Ethereum Merge
The Ethereum Merge was one of the few crypto success stories many investors and traders lived to tell. The Ethereum Merge was completed on the 15th of September 2022, and it even helped the cryptocurrency to increase a little in its market capitalization.
However, despite the good news, the Ethereum Merge brought to NFT crypto stock, it still didn't help the market recover as expected. Nevertheless, the Ethereum Merge helped show the crypto industry's potential and reduce its adverse environmental effects.
Twitter Acquisition and Dogecoin
Elon Musk is often called the father of Dogecoin, and he proved that he deserved that name after he took over the social media platform Twitter. The Elon Musk Twitter Takeover has raised many controversies, but it made some meme coins in the crypto market, especially Dogecoin, price increase.
As one of the few crypto success stories in 2022, those intelligent enough to buy Dogecoin before he took over Twitter made a lot of profit. Dogecoin, within a few days of Elon Musk Twitter takeover, increased in price by as much as over 100%.
The United States Treasury Bans Tornado Cash
Another popular event that even generated protests among United States citizens was the US Treasury's ban on Tornado Cash. This event happened when the government discovered that Tornado Cash was a tool used by those who laundered money.
The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control ban on Tornado Cash was the first time the government banned a decentralized open-source code instead of a platform. This issue even raised questions on whether the government could ban or blacklist any decentralized platform in the crypto industry.
FTX Collapse
Of course, that year's biggest event in the crypto industry was the collapse of the second most valuable crypto exchange, FTX. This is one of the crypto horror stories that have been in the mouth of everyone since the news broke out on November 12th.
The former CEO of the company, who is now facing trial Sam Bankman-Fried, resigned the same day after the company filed for bankruptcy. Apparently, the company has been in poor financial condition for a very long time, and the news sipped the public after FTX couldn't handle withdrawals.
The news shattered NFT crypto stock and the whole industry so much that many people had to take a break from the industry. Even at the time of writing, cryptocurrencies and NFT assets are still forking it hard to recover from the damages of the FTX collapse.
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