Cryptocurrency industry experienced a tumultuous year in 2022. bitcoin (btc) and ethereum (eth) rose, while dogecoin (doge), solana (sol), cardano (ada), polkadot (dot), avalanche (avax), and quant (qnt) all posted double-digit percentage losses. ethereum classic (etc), uniswap (uni), litecoin (lite), and polygon (matic) all experienced losses of around 9%. the sec targeted ftx bigwigs for securities fraud by labeling the exchange’s native token ftt as a security.
Events of 2022 occurred throughout the year. bitcoin more than halved, ethereum depreciated by a factor of three, and the historic collapses of the terra ecosystem (both luna and its algorithmic stablecoin ust) and the centralized ftx exchange were major contributors to the bear run. this contagion spread far across the industry, bankrupting many firms. twitter/tesla ceo elon musk even tweeted a poll asking whether he should step down from twitter, which the majority of respondents, some 10 million people, voted in favor of.
Industry needed to learn important lessons in 2020, and it did so through failure. bitcoin’s popularity among retail investors exponentially grew, with the total supply in people’s hands increasing from 12% to 17%. despite the heady peaks of 2021, the industry experienced a painful trough in 2022, with many learning the hard way.
