Strengths
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the best performer for the year was GMX, rising 89.58%.
- The Russian invasion of Ukraine had a major impact on global markets this year, crypto included. Within days of the invasion, the Ukrainian government’s official Twitter account put out a post requesting Bitcoin and Ethereum donations with two wallet addresses. Donations flooded in, and within three days the government had raised over $30 million worth of Bitcoin, Ether, Polkadot and other digital assets writes crypto briefing.
- Yuga Labs’ acquisition of Larva Lab’s CryptoPunks and Meebits collections sealed Yuga’s crown as the world’s top non-fungible token (NFT) company, helping Bored Apes soar. Bored Ape community members were treated to the biggest airdrop of the year when ApeCoin dropped the following week, with holders of the original tokenized monkey pictures receiving six-figures payouts,, writes Crypto Briefing.
Weaknesses
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the worst performing for the year was Terra Luna, down 100%.
- Crypto prices plunged this year thanks to industry gaffes and the wider and damaging macroeconomic environment. The global crypto market capitalization plunged to below $800 million from over $2.5 trillion as cryptocurrencies entered a bear market in line with traditional markets, writes Bloomberg.
- Crypto suffered a number of high-profile hacks in 2022, but the nine-figure exploit that hit Axie Infinity’s Ronin bridge in March was the biggest. A group of attackers later identified by U.S. law enforcement as the North Korean state-sponsored Lazarus Group used phishing emails to gain access to five of nine Ronin chain validators.
Opportunities
- Ethereum’s switch to proof-of-stake from proof-of-work marked a massive reduction to the network’s energy footprint, ditching the power-hungry crypto mining system in favor of a new method for issuing and validating transactions on the blockchain. The Merge was completed in September.
- President Joe Biden issued an executive order directing almost all federal agencies, including Cabinet departments, to come up with comprehensive plans for U.S. crypto regulation and enforcement. Biden’s order was anticipated for months before it was finally signed in March, and when it landed it was generally seen as a boon to the industry, writes Crypto Briefing.
- The Central African Republic became the second country to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender earlier this year, allowing around 5 million residents to use the flagship cryptocurrency alongside the country’s fiat currency. The move came after Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadera signed a bill into law establishing a regulatory framework for Bitcoin as legal tender, according to Cointelegraph article. /li>
Threats
- FTX’s collapse was a crime, not an accident, and Sam Bankman-Fried was a con man and fraudster of historic proportions. It is now clear that the FTX crypto exchange and the hedge fund Alameda Research was a house of lies and intended to steal money from both users and investors, according to CoinDesk.
- At the height of the crypto bull market, the Terra ecosystem was booming with talent and innovation. The native token of the terra blockchain had made its way to the top 10 cryptocurrencies by total market cap and Terra reach over 90% of TVL with more than $21 billion worth of assets in May 2022. That same month of May will be remembered as Terra’s collapse. The Terra token was supposed to maintain the peg of Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin — until it didn’t. Billions of dollars were wiped out from the market in just a couple of days and the flourishing ecosystem Terra had built was left for dead, according to Cointelegraph.
- The collapse of 3AC following heavy losses amid declining cryptocurrency valuations was one of the focal points on the onset of the crypto winter in recent months. Since then, a swathe of other prominent crypto firms have also filed for bankruptcy, including crypto lenders Celsius Network and Voyager Digital.
