/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/DXJ5V4ZE6JOKHEBTJNHR3Q7DVQ.jpg)
Dec 20 (Reuters) – Bitcoin staggered into 2022. It ends the year slumped in an alley, deprived of its cocktail of cheap money and leveraged betting, shunned by the establishment.
The preeminent cryptocurrency lost 60% of its value, while the broader crypto market shrank by $1.4 trillion, crushed by rising interest rates, fading appetite for corporate risk and meltdowns, including Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX.
Crypto funds saw net inflows of $498 million in 2022, compared to $9.1 billion in 2021, according to data from digital asset manager CoinShares, reflecting how traditional finance has pulled away from the market thanks to his annus horribilis.
James Malcolm, head of FX strategy at UBS, said that in the first half of the year he spent 70% of his time with clients talking about crypto. In contrast, for 10 days in North America last month, from Montreal to Miami, “I spent less than 2% of my time discussing crypto.”
Even last year, before the decline began in November, cryptocurrencies were realistically seen as two to three years away from gaining acceptance from mainstream institutional investors, Malcolm added.
“Now it’s completely in the distant, distant future.”
CRYPTO-OPTIMIST FOR 2023?
However, not all was bad for crypto: 2022 was also the year of the Ethereum blockchain. finally removed its “Merge” mega-upgrade, which moved it to a less power-hungry “stake-proof” system in September.
“This event was a technological feat and one of the only positive events in a year that would otherwise have been pretty bleak for crypto,” said Anthony Georgiades, co-founder of blockchain Pastel Network.
“These upgrades will make the Ethereum ecosystem much easier to use for people around the world. With all of this progress, it’s hard not to be a crypto optimist in 2023.”
Ben McMillan, Chief Investment Officer at IDX Digital Assets, said the growing popularity of blockchain-based tools, including decentralized exchanges and decentralized finance, has also been an important development this year.
“So it’s very hopeful for the community and something to watch for the long term,” he added. “We could see larger allocations to digital assets once risk appetite picks up in 2023.”
BITCOIN ENCOUNTERS A RECESSION
Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $69,000 in November 2021, with the crypto market hitting $3 trillion, buoyed by fiscal and monetary stimulus from countries around the world trying to stave off the economic damage wrought by COVID lockdowns.
But as societies reopened, soaring inflation forced central banks to tighten rates and led investors to flee higher-risk assets – tech stocks and cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin, long heralded as a handy store of value in times of inflation due to its limited supply, crashed during the test as investors turned to tried havens such as the dollar as rates rose. It fell about a third in January, outpacing the 8% drop in US stocks.
“2022 has been a new environment for digital assets. They’ve never been in a recessionary or rising rate environment,” said Katie Talati, research director at digital asset firm Arca.
THE YEAR THE BUBBLE BURST
As investors squeezed money from crypto, big projects came under strain. The first to crack was terraUSD, supposedly a “stablecoin”, and its sister luna. Coins fell in value in May, with investors around the world lose about $42 billion..
The shockwaves rippled through the market: US crypto lender Celsius froze client assets in June and disclosed a $1.2 billion hole because she declared bankruptcy. Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital went bankrupt same month.
Bitcoin and other tokens have suffered a hammer blow, falling by more than half in just 49 days from the end of May. In a single day in June, bitcoin fell more than 15%, its worst day since March 2020, when COVID chaos rocked financial markets.
But the biggest crypto shock was yet to come.
In November, the major exchange FTX collapsed in sudden bankruptcy. Bitcoin fell by a quarter in less than four days as Bankman-Fried sought funds to bail out its exchange.
The cryptocurrency is now hovering around $16,000. All in all, 2022 has been pretty much a crypto calamity.
Or, as economist Noelle Acheson puts it, “the year in which the leverage-inflated bubble burst, exposing the structural weaknesses of an industry that had grown too big, too fast.”
- On the way to 2023? Cryptoverse will be back on January 1. ten
Reporting by Tom Wilson in London and Medha Singh and Lisa Mattackal in Bangalore; Assembly Pravin Char
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
The opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which is committed to integrity, independence and non-partisanship by principles of trust.
0 Comments