Funviralpark Earlier this year, the global cryptocurrency market capitalization reached $2.2 trillion. At the end of the year, that number was just under $800 billion.
Last year’s industry euphoria slumped into a bear market of epic proportions, with many of the industry’s major players collapsing. Or worse.
The plummeting cryptocurrency prices started with central banks cutting the code of the easy money policy, dragging down riskier assets first, and the problems multiplied from there – accounts frozen, bankruptcies declared, Fraud uncovered.
As Yahoo Finance’s Jared Blikre pointed out, despite, or perhaps because of, the cryptocurrency’s epic swoon, Yahoo Finance’s Bitcoin (BTC-USD) quotes page is outperforming major stock indices such as the S&P 500. 8th place on this year’s Top Trends ticker page. The Dow, the Nasdaq, and his three mega-cap stocks: Tesla, Apple, and Amazon.
2021 will see cryptocurrencies underpinning layer 1 tokens such as Ethereum (ETH-USD), Avalanche (AVAX-USD), Solana (SOL-USD), Polygon (MATIC-USD) and Cosmos (ATOM-USD) collected.
This year, the battle for quirky returns has shrunk to a race to minimize losses. And the result is more like a cryptocurrency grab bag than it reflects a clear theme about the industry’s progress.
Ethereum (-68% YTD)
After outperforming Bitcoin by 355% last year, Ether (ETH-USD) emerges as the 10th best cryptocurrency in 2022 and is down just under 70% this year.
Despite its performance, the second largest cryptocurrency successfully upgraded Merge in mid-September, moving from proof of work to proof of stake. This proved to be his one of the few success stories in the industry for 2022.
The technical feat allowed Ethereum core developers to dive into other developments. initiative It aims to improve the protocol’s transaction scaling, privacy, and use as a financial layer.
Ethereum, both a decentralized banking layer and a technology platform, has yet to offer the key feature of allowing investors to withdraw their stakes. As pointed out by his associate Christine Kim at Galaxy Digital Research, Ethereum’s core developer team has announced that the Shanghai upgrade of the protocol, including his staked ETH withdrawal, is expected as early as March 2023. It states that it may be enabled on
The merge made the Ethereum blockchain 99.95% more energy efficient, contributing to the deflation of the Ether supply.
Bitcoin (-65% YTD)
The world’s largest cryptocurrency fared better than some smaller ones, but was immune to the 2022 market washout.
Bitcoin is currently trading near $16,500 after a 76% drop from its November 2021 peak of $68,789.
Since speaking with Yahoo Finance in April when bitcoin traded at $41,000, Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy Digital, said he doesn’t think the market has changed its view on bitcoin (BTC-USD). said. He is an option for a future where cryptocurrencies are treated like digital gold” and a “protest against the unreliability of central banks”.
Bitcoin investors realized $213 billion in losses between the November 2021 peak and December 12, according to data collected by crypto analytics platform Glassnode.
“Regarding the outlook for next year, it’s really hard to be bullish on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general given the tenuous macro and financial situation,” added Thorn.
Dogecoin (-60% YTD)
The original ‘meme’ coin, which was widely held by retail investors, followed most of the crypto market with a massive sell-off starting in Q2.
Still, Dogecoin fared better than many tokens in 2022.
However, unlike most major cryptocurrencies, Dogecoin (DOGE-USD) has already It has plummeted from a peak in May 2021 of 64% by the end of 2021, when Elon Musk appeared on Saturday Night Live.
“People know it’s a joke. They like jokes,” Thorn told Yahoo Finance.
Thorn’s team published a paper on peak DOGE in 2021, pointing to an “overall lack of development effort” and a “lack of serious long-term narratives and use cases.” .
Still, Thorn’s team found that Dogecoin had a “fair launch.” That means that pre-sales and ventures he did not include capital financing.
The cryptocurrency has outperformed most other cryptocurrencies throughout the fourth quarter, largely due to Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, and users believe the purchase will bring some benefit to Doge holders. I’m assuming it could lead to
Ethereum Classic (-54% YTD)
Ethereum Classic (ETC-USD) also benefited from speculation leading to a merger, with a 53% loss.
Its usage and developer community is a fraction of the size of Ethereum, but Thomas Dunleavy, a senior market researcher at Messari, said small-cap tokens will be available on a regular basis ahead of Ethereum-related software upgrades. He pointed out that the value has risen substantially.
As the Ethereum merge neared completion, skeptical investors looked to Ethereum Classic and other offshoots of the second-largest cryptocurrency as a hedge or insurance against a failed upgrade.
BNB (-53% YTD) and OKB (-17% YTD)
Exchange-related tokens such as OKB (OKB-USD) and BNB (BNB-USD) outperformed most cryptocurrencies this year.
BNB is the token associated with Binance and OKB is the token of the OKX ecosystem.
However, as recent developments with the FTX crisis and the collapse of the corresponding exchange token FTT show, the value of these tokens can change rapidly based on the management of the corresponding crypto exchange.
Exchange tokens can give their holders certain advantages such as lower transaction fees and the ability to vote on exchange decisions. Exchange tokens are mostly associated with the success of crypto exchanges as businesses that act like stocks in companies.
Monero (-42% YTD)
As in previous years, the tension between transparency and privacy in cryptocurrency trading is back as an undercurrent through 2022.
Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum, Monero (XMR-USD) provides users with low censorship transaction privacy by default without requiring the use of crypto-mixing services.
Monero’s more modest selling this year suggests that its function as a privacy coin offered users more utility than most cryptocurrencies on the market.
Thoron (-28% YTD)
TRX (TRX-USD), the native cryptocurrency of the Tron blockchain, came out ahead of most other cryptocurrencies and lost less than a third of its value this year.
According to Messari’s Thomas Dunleavy, the token’s value has primarily benefited from the increasing amount of stablecoins in the Tron ecosystem. TRX supply his burn is based on trading volume levels.
As 2021 superstar LUNA crashed in May along with its related stablecoin TerraUSD (UST), the Tron ecosystem launched its own decentralized stablecoin (USDD-USD). According to Messari, his network activity in the Tron ecosystem surged 47% in the second quarter.
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