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Rewind 2022: A crypto roundup of the year and stepping into 2023

Inflation and centralised asset custody hampered investors in 2022, but the crypto ecosystem’s potential shone through.

As we enter 2023, it’s time to reflect on the crypto community’s achievements and challenges from the past year. No investment strategy could rescue traditional and crypto portfolios from 2022 onward. January 2022 inherited a slightly collapsing market, where 2021 all-time high investments lost money.

For many, especially newcomers, falling crypto prices meant the end. The community’s resilience and achievements against a global recession, orchestrated attacks and scams, and an unforgiving bear market went unnoticed.

2022 inherited the 2021 hype around nonfungible tokens (NFTs), the Metaverse, iconic all-time highs for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and falling prices.

Geopolitical pressures caused major fiat currencies to collapse, causing global inflation. Investor confidence in traditional markets bled into crypto, and ecosystem collapses exacerbated the negative sentiment.

The crypto community strengthened its core during market downturns. Blockchain upgrades and faster, cheaper, and more secure features and capabilities were driven by community consensus. Leading crypto ecosystems reached a milestone in 2022.

Bitcoin’s Lightning Network (LN) protocol received a much-needed upgrade. Taproot improved LN privacy and efficiency in November 2021. Bitcoin’s Taproot upgrade added privacy and efficiency protocols. It reduced database sizes, which slowed Bitcoin ledger growth.

By May 2022, Bitcoin was halfway to the next halving, which halves mining rewards, the only way new Bitcoin is released. Every 210,00 blocks, Bitcoin transaction confirmation rewards are halved. Bitcoin’s last halving occurred on May 11, 2020, at $9,200.

Bitcoin is limited to 21 million by design. Thus, halving events reduce Bitcoin supply. The halving event’s scarcity boosted Bitcoin price.

According to Cointelegraph Markets Pro, Bitcoin rallied for several months to reach its all-time high by November 2021 and stayed above $15,000 until 2022.

The Ethereum community welcomed the Merge upgrade, which switched the Ethereum blockchain from PoW to PoS consensus. The upgrade cut energy use drastically. The crypto community expects lower energy usage to revive interest in Ether-power sub-ecosystems like NFTs.

Bitcoin price and investor sentiment have historically driven crypto market performance. The year lacked both factors.

Attacks, unprecedented sanctions, and bankruptcy filings in the crypto ecosystem exacerbated the global recession. Investors lost all their funds overnight when FTX, 3AC, Voyager, BlockFi, and Terraform Labs collapsed in 2022.

During this uproar, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and Terra co-founder and CEO Do Kwon betrayed millions.

Despite the challenges, the Bitcoin and crypto ecosystem survived and showed unprecedented resilience. Gold and stocks also suffered. Gold investors lost 0.3% in January–December 2022.

Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Netflix, Meta, and Tesla stocks all performed poorly this year.

Bitcoin started strong with a $47,680 price point in Jan. 2022, but dwindling investor sentiment, driven by year-long rising inflation, energy prices, and market uncertainties, drove prices down by over 60% by December.

Bear markets have repeatedly weeded out bad actors and allowed promising crypto projects to show investors their true value beyond the price point.

The Bitcoin network strengthened its core against double-spending (51% attacks) despite price fluctuations. Hash rate and network difficulty—two computational power-based security metrics—reassured Bitcoiners that the blockchain network was well-protected. The Bitcoin network consistently set new hash rate records and ended the year between 250 and 300 Exahashes per second (EH/s).

As they prepare for 2023, other major crypto players released system and feature upgrades. Polygon Technology, an Ethereum-based Web3 infrastructure, launched zkEVM, a layer-2 scaling solution to reduce transaction costs and improve scalability. 1inch Network’s Fusion upgrade offers crypto investors cost-effective, secure, and profitable swaps.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin legalisation was notable, especially since its 2021 Bitcoin procurement suffered the same fate as other crypto investors. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele confirmed this decision by purchasing BTC daily from Nov. 17.

This lowers El Salvador’s average buying price. The country can offset unrealized losses by buying Bitcoin dips and recovering the market.

Bitcoin saved many people from high inflation.

While 2023 will not see the Bitcoin halving, it will help the crypto ecosystem recover. The ecosystem is preparing for the next disruption with aggressive blockchain upgrades, updated business strategies, and investor attention.

Investors will move from losses and mistrust to self-custody and informed investments in 2023. “Making it” in crypto now means creating, supporting, and preaching a new money paradigm.

 

Crypto products and NFTs are unregulated and can be highly risky. There may be no regulatory recourse for any loss from such transactions. Crypto is not a legal tender and is subject to market risks. Readers are advised to seek expert advice and read offer document(s) along with related important literature on the subject carefully before making any kind of investment whatsoever. Crypto market predictions are speculative and any investment made shall be at the sole cost and risk of the readers.