Year Ender 2022: Top 9 Craziest Crypto News of this Year; Bitcoin Collapse, SBF Arrest

Craziest Crypto News: SBF, the former FTX CEO, was the second wealthiest crypto person in the month of February this year. As of December, SBF was arrested on 8 different charges and is awaiting trial in the U.S. Overall, it has been a crazy ride for the crypto market this year.

Let’s look at the 9 craziest crypto news that took place in the cryptoverse, in 2022.

The cryptos stumbled to the rising interest rates

To control inflation, the FED has hiked interest rates this year to an extent, which was beyond expectations. They have also indicated to hike rates in the coming year as well. This made the investors withdraw from putting their money into any sort of investment.

As there were hints of raising interest rates in January itself, the crypto market started feeling turbulence. Bitcoin and Ethereum slipped by 19% and 29% respectively in that one month.

Super Bowl LVI’s halftime advertisements were dominated by crypto powerhouses

2021 saw the peak of the crypto world. Thus, the leading crypto platforms went on to partner with sportspersons and tournaments. A QR code bounced across a screen for 60 seconds in Coinbase‘s straightforward advertisement, and the company gave out $15 worth of bitcoin to entice viewers to its website.

LeBron James and Crypto.com partnered, while Larry David and FTX made fun of cryptocurrency naysayers in their “Don’t Be Like Larry/Don’t Miss Out” commercial.

FTX had various collaborations in the sports world which simply made no sense at the end of the year as it crashed.

Crash of the stablecoin TerraUSD

TerraUSD (UST) was always supposed to be at 1 USD, as it was a stablecoin. There was heavy selling of UST on 7th May which led to the breaking of its dollar peg.

Terra used an algorithm to keep the UST pegged to the dollar rather than keeping dollar reserves. If UST fell below 1 USD, this software would mint and sell modest amounts of its sister token, luna, to maintain its value.

The algorithm went into overdrive when UST plummeted, minting and dumping luna onto the market. It generated so much that, in a matter of days, the price of luna fell from an all-time high of 119.51 USD to 0.

Celsius Network decided to never work like a bank again

Citing the reason of “tough market conditions,” Celsius decided to stop its customers from withdrawing money. Bitcoin, as a result, plunged below its 23,000 USD mark, a decrease of 15%.

The crypto Bitcoin slipped under the 20,000 USD mark

This year has been disastrous for Bitcoin and its investors. For the first time, since 2020, Bitcoin fell below 20,000 USD.

The collapse of Bitcoin had an impact on the whole crypto sector. Ethereum was trading just above 1,000 USD by the end of June. At the same time, altcoins Solana and Polkadot were trading 90% below their all-time highs from 2021.

Crash of the Three Arrows Capital

The hedge fund, Three Arrows Capital saw its end this year. This cryptocurrency company, also known as “3AC,” was shut down by a court on June 27 after defaulting on a bitcoin loan from lender Voyager Digital in the middle of the month.

Soon after this, Voyager filed for bankruptcy, and the crypto lender company Genesis is drowning in loans.

FTX Collapse

Once the world’s top leading exchange, FTX was a billion-dollar empire made by Sam Bankman-Fried. It filed for bankruptcy on 11th November in the U.S.

According to reports from November, the sibling trading company of FTX, Alameda Research, held a sizeable portion of its portfolio in FTT, the exchange’s native token. Within a short period of time, the price of FTT fell from 22 USD to just 1 USD, causing a solvency problem for FTX.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s Arrest

On December 12, the former FTX CEO was arrested in the Bahamas on charges of fraud and money laundering. He is facing 8 criminal charges altogether. SBF was known to be one of the best CEOs in the crypto world. His charitable organizations had given millions to the media, NGOs, and to the democratic party in the U.S.

Once a crypto king, is now left with nothing.

Customers pull 6 billion USD from Binance

Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange is under close examination following the collapse of FTX. It is a major crypto news right now.

In December, it lost $6 billion in just 72 hours when investors withdrew their funds from the platform. In light of this, the platform’s native Binance Coin tokens saw a sharp decline in price, leading to worries that it would have a liquidity crisis.

By hiring French accounting firm Mazars to conduct a proof-of-reserve audit on its cryptocurrency holdings, Binance made an effort to assuage the skeptics.

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