January 23, 2023
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0The Most Significant Crypto Events in 2022
Undoubtedly, the outgoing year was found a difficult time for the entire cryptocurrency world. Ups and downs of collapse and at the same time the introduction of new technologies.
Let’s consider the most important events from the world of cryptocurrencies together.
The last of the crypto events in 2022
1. Crypto “winter” came earlier
In 2022, the cryptocurrency entered with confidence in growth, but the consequences of the economic downturn due to the coronavirus, combined with the general geopolitical situation, gave rise to a real crisis in the largest countries of the world. The US is struggling with inflation by raising the key rate (which also affects the stock market) to 4.5%, which is the highest since August 2007.
At the same time, bitcoin lost 65% percent compared to the previous calendar year.
Learn more about crypto winter here.
2. Ethereum upgrade
Absolutely everyone has heard about it. For a very long time, Vitalik Buterin intrigued us with news about the upcoming update of Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency. And so, in the fall of 2022, The Merge update finally marked the transition from the proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm to the proof-of-stake (PoS) algorithm.
For a long time before the “Merge” there was a lot of hype and misinformation about whether the update would be postponed, what impact it would have on the Ethereum community and whether it would eliminate previous shortcomings, such as the high “gas fee.” In the end, the technically difficult task went smoothly. “The Merge” is a huge step into the future — in 2023. Thanks to the new consensus algorithm, Ethereum turned out to be more than 90% more environmentally friendly.
At first, the May Terra LUNA, ignoring both the laws of supply and demand and having lost its dollar peg, showed rapid negative growth, multiplying investors’ assets and faith in the project by zero.
This was followed by the infamous FTX exchange. It is difficult to overestimate its impact on the market because the collapse affected all market participants. By the way, Bankman-Fried is also associated with the May collapse of Terra. The amount of damage is estimated in billions of dollars, and users are still fighting for a refund of their funds, while Sam suffers the betrayal of his partners and uses people’s money to bail out.
It is worth noting that this event, although painful, served as a lesson to the entire market. From now on, all major exchanges are implementing the Proof-of-Reserve algorithm — an audit method through which absolutely every user will be able to verify the reliability of the service they use.
Bankman-Fried is at the top of people who have changed in 2022. Read more here.
4. Web 3.0
Despite the drop in the rates of cryptocurrencies in 2022, blockchain technology continued to develop in other directions. In particular, this applies to Web3.
One of the important proofs of the continued interest in this topic is the number of downloads of two key open source JavaScript libraries that allow developers to interact with the Ethereum blockchain. In the 3rd quarter of 2022, the number of downloads of Ethers libraries.js and Web3.js was 1,536,548 times a week. This is an increase of 178% in annual comparison. At the same time, the weekly indicator of developers installing these libraries has been consistently growing since 2018. This year it has more than 10 times exceeded the 2018 maximum of 145,799.
Meanwhile, the increased interest in Web3 projects in the metaverse segment from well-known luxury brands (such as Nike) is a promising factor for the industry, as it will activate the processes of mass adoption of NFT and Web3 technologies among the public.
Learn more about Web 3.0 perspectives here.
Year results for NFT
The correlation with the crypto market has doomed all the communities of the sphere to the unpleasant consequences of the market downturn. At the same time, Solana is experiencing difficulties after the collapse of FTX.
Despite the crisis, it is worth paying tribute to all enthusiasts — thanks to the activity of users and incredible support for projects, the ecosystem continues to cope with the crisis and stay afloat in such a difficult time.
Read more about NFT here.
1. NFT — not just pictures
The year 2022 is one of the key stages in the development of the field of non-interchangeable tokens. Society has begun to reveal the real potential of NFT, using this technology not only for speculating with images of dubious quality.
From now on, NFT:
- rental facility (temporary purchase of tokens in reNFT)
- tickets (NFT tickets in Decentraland)
- Proof-of-Community Membership (The Garden by Azuki)
- attributes in games (clothing and equipment for a character in metaverses, for example — The Sandbox)
In fact, the potential is huge and applicable in various spheres of life, and people’s understanding has had a huge impact on the world of blockchain.
2. New trends
Along with new projects, new ideas began to come.
The move-to-earn concept gained a whole new meaning when users got the opportunity to earn cryptocurrency on their steps. What is the STEPN project worth, which has successfully implemented this idea, eventually gathering millions of users from all over the world?
Meanwhile, marketplaces have implemented a “0% royalty” system, initially making life difficult for competitors and creators of collections. As a result, some of the creators adopted a new trend, and Magic Eden allowed the authors to choose a path — from the charity in the rejection of royalties to profit, leaving partial royalties.
3. Mass integration
Having seen the potential of NFT, countless large companies began to open specialized directorates — from Web 3.0 development to the creation of branded metaverses.
Many clothing brands have launched digital clothing collections, allowing people to purchase clothing attributes for their digital avatars. Here are some of them:
- Adidas and Into the Metaverse. Collection of clothes for virtual avatars
- Nike with a platform .SWOOSH and RTFKT collaborations
- Gucci, Bulgari, Zara in games
Many artists have discovered the opportunity to share their creativity through NFT, which helps to aspire creators to gain fame not only in the digital world, but also in the real world.
Conclusion
No matter how painful 2022 may seem for the crypt, it had a strong impact and rallied all enthusiasts in the fight against the crisis. In addition, the collapse of FTX and the fall of LUNA reminded people of the importance of such factors as security and honesty to users.
In the past year, many people have discovered blockchain, whether it’s renting real estate, creating collections, or working in metaverses — we all understood and realized how vast the blockchain sphere is, and how important it is to work on its improvement.
Now we are on the threshold of a new world – the world of Web3, which will completely change our lives for the better.
We congratulate you on the New Year and wish you warmth, kindness, and success!
