FTX, Luna and More: Top Cryptocurrency Moments of 2022

With conscionable hours until different twelvemonth arrives and 2022 slips retired of sight, determination is nary amended accidental than present to instrumentality a look backmost astatine each of the crypto’s noteworthy moments passim this past year.

10. “The Crocodile of Wall Street” gets arrested (February)

In February, the U.S. Justice Department unveiled its largest-ever seizure of fiscal assets aft arresting 2 radical who conspired to launder $5.1 cardinal successful Bitcoin stolen during a 2016 hack of the Bitfinex currency exchange. Ilya Lichtenstein and his woman Heather Morgan were apprehended by national agents successful New York City. Morgan, who is believed to person gone by the pseudonym "razzlekhan" connected societal media, promoted herself arsenic an aspiring rapper, entrepreneur and Forbes contributor anterior to her arrest. She referred to herself arsenic "the infamous crocodile of Wall Street."

9. Joe Biden’s enforcement bid brings much clarity (March)

In March, U.S. President Joe Biden published an enforcement bid concerning authorities oversight of cryptocurrency. He mentioned that this determination is meant to unafraid the nation’s fiscal strategy from threats similar illicit financing and besides summation fairness, ratio and inclusiveness. The EO was mostly praised wrong the cryptocurrency assemblage arsenic a invited measurement forward.

8. Shiba Inu enters metaverse (April)

The Shiba Inu squad introduced a virtual satellite which it dubbed SHIB: The Metaverse successful April. It promises to springiness onshore owners an accidental to make passive income and make assorted rewards. Throughout the year, the meme coin besides secured respective metaverse-related partnerships.

7. The EU comes adjacent to banning Bitcoin (March) 

A projected ban, if adopted, would efficaciously person prohibited the mining of caller Bitcoins done the proof-of-work (PoW) statement successful the EU.

However, aft further deliberations, European regulators decided to scrap it arsenic portion of a revision of the MiCA legislation.

6. Ronin Network gets drained by North Korean hackers (March)

Ronin Network, which is tied to fashionable blockchain gaming rubric Axie Infinity, had $615 cardinal worthy of Ether and USDC tokens stolen successful March.

Later, U.S. authorities determined that the infamous Lazarus Group, which is linked to the North Korean government, is liable for the record-breaking heist.

5. Ethereum’s Merge upgrade and Cardano’s Vasil hard fork spell unrecorded (September)

The large upgrade, labeled the Merge, was finalized successful September to overmuch fanfare. The extremity effect of this upgrade shifted the fashionable blockchain from a proof-of-work strategy to a proof-of-stake system, frankincense eliminating the energy-consuming mining process that was associated with Ethereum before.

In the aforesaid month, Cardano launched its Vasil upgrade aft facing delays and method obstacles. It came 1 twelvemonth aft the Alonzo hard fork.

4. Bitcoin plunges to caller two-year debased (November)

On Nov. 21, Bitcoin extended its yearlong slide, plunging to a caller yearly debased of $15,479. The cryptocurrency was down much than 77% from its caller peak, with the Federal Reserve’s hawkish argumentation and a drawstring of bankruptcies contributing to the sell-off.

3. Celsius goes underwater (July)

The cryptocurrency lending assemblage was shaken to its halfway erstwhile Celsius Network declared bankruptcy, becoming the latest unfortunate of a monolithic liquidity crisis. This came aft Celsius unexpectedly suspended withdrawals for its customers, causing a marketplace sell-off.

2. Terra implodes, Do Kwon connected the tally (May)

The cryptocurrency marketplace saw tremendous losses successful worth aft Luna and sister stablecoin TerraUSD collapsed. TerraUSD mislaid its peg, undermining religion successful the centralized stablecoin.

Amid each this, determination has been adjacent much contention arsenic Interpol has posted a Red Notice for Do Kwon, the laminitis of Terraform Labs. Kwon’s determination has since been unknown, but helium is rumored to beryllium hiding successful Serbia.

1. FTX files for bankruptcy, SBF ends up down bars (November)

Cryptocurrency speech FTX officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy extortion aft losing astir $32 cardinal successful worth successful lone days. U.S. authorities besides charged Sam Bankman-Fried with defrauding investors. He was arrested successful the Bahamas, extradited to the U.S and released connected a $250 cardinal bail. The stunning downfall of the wild-haired crypto mogul, which is comparable to that of Enron’s Jeffrey Skilling and Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, is undoubtedly the biggest crypto communicative of the year. The FTX saga is already getting the Hollywood treatment, with streaming giants vying to unafraid rights.