2022 - Year in Review
Hey Shitcoiners,
It has been a hell of a year. As we round off this chapter we have compiled all of the spice from 2022. There have been ups and downs, rugs and collapses. It’s been wild. Here are some of our highlights.
The ETH Merge
The Ethereum Merge has been in the pipeline for years now and 2022 would be when the blockchain finally switched from PoW to PoS. The Ethereum community came to the realisation that their net worth was in the hands of one man.
Vitalik lookalikes started springing up everywhere, even at porn conventions.
The Merge could not stop the market from tanking though. The price of ETH was still following the rest of the market.
The move away from PoW wasn’t what everyone wanted. Miners were not happy. Chandler Guo emerges as the man leading ETH (PoW), which would see Ethereum remain as a Proof of Work chain.
Crypto Twitter began hypothesising what the fork actually would mean.
Degens were ready to gamble.
We also saw Kevin from Galois Capital jump in and offer his consultancy services to either side.
Vitalik formulated a witty response.
All was looking on track as The Goerli testnet was successfully merged!
As we mentally prepared, we were gifted with some iconic imagery. We learned that Vitalik is packing!
After years of build up, it happened.
The Collapse of LUNA
During the last bullrun, LUNA was leading on pumpanomics. At the forefront of this charge up the coin rankings was co-founder and CEO, Do Kwon. He believed he had this all worked out. So much so he was throwing around some sizeable bets.
It was fun to watch.
Industry spectators were not convinced that LUNA was stable. It looked like a disaster waiting to happen.
UST began to depeg but Do went on the offensive.
It kept happening though.
The tanking continued.
The LUNA ecosystem, including UST slowly bled out. Going from a top 5 project to zero in a matter of days. There were casualties. There were regrets.
In a bid to turn it around, Terraform Labs launched LUNA 2.0. The next iteration would not fair mcuh better than the original.
As the dust settled mentions of shenanigans began to surface.
And Do became a wanted man.
As we write this, Do is still roaming free. Supposedly Interpol red notices don’t mean you immediately go into police custody!
Three Arrows Capital
Rumours swirled that one of the casualties of the LUNA collapse were 3AC.
It wasn’t looking good.
Bitlord began the search for Zhu!
One of the best parts of this timeline was that Su had ordered a $43M yacht before this all went down…
By July, 3AC were confirmed as out of business. It was fun while it lasted.
The Fall of FTX
It’s fair to say the collapse of FTX was the story that caught many of us off-guard the most. From the outside, it looked like they were running a tight ship. FTX didn’t care about shiny things!
It was all looking so good.
And charitable!
As the bear market took hold, they emerged as the “saviours” of the industry. They had cash ready to bailout failing businesses.
They were in the driving seat. But even with billions ready to deploy, they couldn’t save some.
FTX and Alameda were always touted as separate entities. As far back as August stories circulated that there was a lot more crossover than we thought.
That didn’t stop Sam. He was trying to be the voice of crypto when it came to regulation. He had some thoughts on DeFi that many disagreed with.
In what would be the catalyst of the FTX collapse, CZ announced that Binance would be liquidating any remaining FTT they had.
SBF responded with a “make love, not war” post.
CZ was playing 4D chess. He wanted FTX.
But the numbers didn’t add up. Was there some funky business going on at FTX we couldn’t see?
We all know how this ended. FTX collapsed. We had rumours of orgies, arrests and worst of all, many of us lost significant amounts. The FTX story has been a focal point over the past few months. Check out previous newsletters if you want to dig into the story further.
Solana
Solana started the year in a fairly strong position but as you will see in the next few posts, it wouldn’t last.
Solana was about to go through the perfect storm of poor performance and their biggest supporter (FTX) crashing.
Remember Solana Summer?
That was a thing of the past.
Binance
We had to dedicate a section to Binance. The industry’s biggest exchange has weathered the storm until now, but not without controversy. Remember the swastika?
As we navigate this bear market, CZ is doing everything he can to position Binance as our saviour.
But alas, confidence in centralized exchanges has dropped considerably. Many people are calling for all funds to be pulled.
Scams and Hacks
The bear market has dominated 2022. To add to the poor sentiment, scams, rugs and hacks have been on the rise. While nothing actually went missing from Wonderland, we started the year with news that Sifu was actually the co-founder of fallen Canadian exchange, QuadrigaCX. Spicy!
Wormhole had a bad February. 120,000 ETH went missing.
It wasn’t looking good for the decentralized bridges…
We also got wind that funds from the 2016 Bitfinex hack were on the move.
And the culprits were not who we thought they would be. Enter RAZZLEKHAN!
The “battle tested” blockchains were getting REKT. Ronin was next.
And Wintermute made an oopsie.
Not once, but twice.
Once known as “Uptober”, October now had a new nickname… “Hacktober”.
Rugs were everywhere!
NFTs
In 2021 we saw the rise of NFTs. They were an up-only, money printing machine. However, 2022 would be different. Remember when everyone was buying tweets?
Coinbase launched their own NFT platform. Hailed as an OpenSea competitor, they wouldn’t fair so well.
Things got weird.
Bored Ape Yacht Club pulled in normies and celebrities alike. If blockchains are too complicated, just sell people JPEGs! With many new crypto users attracted the the project, hacks were frequent. Here is a compilation of stolen Bored Apes and the subsequent memes!
Tornado Cash
Tornado Cash made headlines as the Ethereum mixer was blacklisted by the US Treasury Department. Many who interacted with the popular on-chain mixer began to sweat.
Crypto reacted in the only way it knows how. Let’s infect some doxxed wallets!
It ended up pretty bad for developers involved in the project, with one being arrested in The Netherlands.
Market Warning Signs
We can’t say we weren’t warned that things were going to get ugly. The biggest warning sign of them all was Barry. Whatever the DCG founder says, the opposite usually happens. We hope for your sake you didn’t take his advice.
Case and point.
Valuations were insane. The writing was on the wall.
Elon
We had to include a section on Elon. His tweets have historically pumped the markets. He called for McDonald’s to accept DOGE.
McDonald’s responded.
As most conversations in this industry take place on Twitter, Elon acquiring the popular social media platform would be seen as net positive.
Binance were in!
(Un-)Profitable Trading
While most of us were getting REKT, some were profiting. You did need an edge though in 2022. Frontrunning listings sounded like a good idea, apart from the getting arrested part.
Generally though, everyone was getting REKT.
The End of the Rainbow
2022 saw the end of an era. The rainbow chart would fail. RIP and thank you for your service.
The Bogs Are No More
We also said goodbye to two legends of the space. They have been meme’d to eternity. Farewell Igor and Grichka.
And that’s a wrap! 2022 has been nuts. We are excited to see what happens in the year to come. Thank you for your support and stay tuned for more from Shitcoin.com.
