Biggest News and Events in 2021 for crypto
Happy New Years readers and Insula Investment Management community. 2021 Has been a very eventful year within crypto. With a lot of bullish & bearish movement, FUD that made everyone hold their breath. Strength, growth and adoption within crypto that has shaped the future in such a way that is making everyone draw their eyes towards crypto.
BTC and Biggest gainers of 2021
It is undeniable that 2021 was quite unique, in several ways. To begin let’s look at Bitcoin (BTC). BTC on the 1st of January 2021 to 14th of April 2021 went from slightly under $29,500 to slightly over $65,000 (+120%). Which at the time was all time high. This was a remarkable run. However, BTC didn’t steal the spotlight in 2021. According to Bitcoin.com top three gainers in 2021 were: Gala (GALA) increased by +212,036%, Axie Infinity (AXS) increased by +18,957% and Content Value Network (CVNT) increased by +18,572%. Of course, there were many more remarkable winners.
NFT’s and P2E
With Axie Infinity in mind, 2021 was the year of P2E (play-2-earn) / GameFi year in which we saw dozens of P2E games gain popularity. This was the first time where players and crypto enthusiasts got the opportunity to play games in which they could earn crypto in return. Additionally, it was the first time in which people playing games could own a part of the game they were playing, through the integration of NFT’s.
About NFT’s, it started off as: “it’s just a JPEG”, “it’s just pixels”, “This is not real art”. And today, according to Investopedia.com most expensive NFT was sold for $69.3 Million. The NFT activity grew tremendously throughout 2021, with numerous NFT projects gained tremendous traction.
Crypto Conferences
The sheer number of conferences around the world is another proving factor that is showing the tremendously fast pace of adoption and growing interest in crypto and blockchain. Here is a short list of conferences that were held around the world.
- World Forum of Ethereum Scaling and Upgrading 2021 (Shanghai, China)
- Ethereum London Hark Fork (London, UK)
- Blockchain Expo Global 2021 (London, Amsterdam & North America)
- Cardano Summit 2021 (Virtual and held in-person across the globe)
- Solana Breakpoint 2021 (Lisbon, Portugal)
- LA Blockchain Summit (Los Angeles, California, North America)
- Miami Crypto EXP (Miami, Florida, North America)
Other Memorable Mentions:
- Nayib Bukele / El Salvador (BTC legal tender)
- Kazakhstan (Nearly 1/5th of the world’s Bitcoin mining output)
- Coinbase (First crypto company to list on the U.S. Stock exchange)
- Metaverse (The Sandbox, Decentraland, Enjin Coin, Axie Infinity)
- Solana (New smart contract-enabled networks emerged on the scene)
- Avalanche (New smart contract network that shot into the top 10)
- OpenSea (First mover in the NFT art sector and leading marketplace)
- ProShares ETF (First Bitcoin ETF)
- Visa and PayPal (support for buys and sells for cryptocurrencies)
- DeFi Boom (DeFi grew at a tremendous rate and popularity)
- Institutional Cryptocurrency Adoption
- Crypto becomes a multi-trillion-dollar asset class
Note: There was many more memorable mentions. However, this list would go on forever.
Rug Pull and Crypto hack
The infamous Squid Game token rug pull. With the rise of the famous Netflix show Squid Game, a token (unrelated to Netflix or the creators of Squid Game) called Squid Game saw a $2.8 billion rug pull scam. Also, the unthinkable crypto hack occurred in 2021. A hacker stole more then $600 million in crypto from Poly Network (NOT Polygon (MATIC), the two are unrelated).
FUD (China Crypto BAN, Environmental Concern, Legislation/Tax Selling/CBDC’s, COVID-19)
With all this extremely bullish news for crypto, we did have quite a few impactful moments of FUD. For example, the news of China banning crypto in April sent Bitcoin plummeting down roughly 50%. China banning crypto has been headline new many times over the 10 years. This time however things were a bit more serious.
In 2021 we also saw the growing concern for the environmental concerns and impact that crypto has. Specifically, regarding the blockchain network heavy electricity usage. Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk went from accepting Bitcoin as payments for Tesla cars from one day, and suddenly no longer accepting Bitcoin as payment. His primary concern being the use of fossil fuels for crypto mining.
Legislation and CBDC’s has been a quickly emerging topic throughout 2021, where the crypto community seems rather divided. One side argues that legislation for CBDC’s goes against the fundamentals of cryptocurrencies, and that public sectors should leave crypto at bay. However, the other argument is that legislation would bring more clarity and stability. This is however a very controversial topic and the future regarding legislation and CBDC’s is yet to be determined.
COVID-19 has been a global pandemic and impacted people a lot from a personal and professional standpoint. However, it has also affected the crypto market. When new variants of the COVID-19 pandemic have appeared globally the crypto market has reacted rather negatively and caused a decline in prices.
2022
2022 is a new year with new opportunities, new price targets and room for growth. At Insula Investment Management, we would like to wish you a great start to the new year, lots of great health and strength. We are excited to begin this new year off strongly. The team at Insula are all back to work at the highest gear. We are excited to work with you and share our progress and journey for the new year.