2023 - A Spicy Year In Review

H‍ey Shitcoiners,

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With 2023 coming to a close, it’s time to review the rollercoaster that was the last 12 months! In this extended read from us we cover many of the highlights, as well as the low points. ETF rumours, the FTX aftermath, ecosystem growth, hacks and an endless supply of memes. We have it all.

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The Shitcoin.com Influencers Of The Year

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Before we get to the highlights, we have a new segment! Here are the Shitcoin.com top influencers of the year.

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1st Place - Jmo (@cuntycakes123)

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Jmo has been dropping bombs on his timeline all year. He isn’t shilling you anything, but he drops alpha on the regular. We have thoroughly enjoyed his spicy shitposting this year. Plus, he recently started wage cucking with Shitcoin.com. Check out the latest episode of Wage Cucking With Jmo.

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2nd Place - Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes)

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Arthur has been dropping in-depth, macro-focused reads on his Substack. As you’ll see from the mentions of him in this 2023 review, his shitposts hit different. We are excited for the bull posts we know are coming in 2024.

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3rd Place - Justin Sun (justinsuntron)

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Justin Sun comes in at number 3 this year. We like this new storyline he’s following as he tries to become a YouTube Shorts influencer. It’s wacky. Justin, never change.

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A Bitcoin ETF?

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The news of a possible Bitcoin ETF has been circulating all year and was cited as a catalyst for this slow grind-up we have had. Crypto Twitter was chomping at the bit for any news around it all year. You might remember when Cointelegraph made a bit of a premature announcement! This caused the Bitcoin price to skyrocket to just under $30,000. Alas, they were too early.

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We all realised that being a media outlet intern could be one of the most profitable positions in the space.

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The FTX Aftermath

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After the FTX collapse in November 2022, we were gripped to our screens as we waited to see what happened to SBF and co. We covered the situation a lot in the newsletter this year so we will just share some of our favourite bits. For more detailed reading, we recommend checking out newsletter #262 and newsletter #263.

SBF started the year as a free man, trying his best to plead his innocence. He even shared some spreadsheets!‍

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In all of shitposting that ensued many were wondering, where the hell was Trabucco?‍

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Arthur got in on the action, dunking on SBF with his masterpiece titled “Vitiligo. Our favourite segment by far had to be, “this little soy-boy took their money so he could cover losses at his hedge fund run by his girlfriend who admitted she wasn’t good at maths.”‍

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‍We didn’t expect an SBF response but he delivered.‍

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The memes flowed. Bitcoin Magazine did some photoshopping and made the cover of the year!‍

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As the dust settled, we got to hear from several former employees about their time at FTX. On Wage Cucking With Jmo, we got to hear Zane’s thoughts on how things went down. It was a must watch.

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And here’s a great thread from a former Alameda engineer.

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As Sam ended up behind bars as he awaited trial, Martin Shkreli shared some speculation on what Sam would face on the inside. Yikes.

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He did still get some air-gapped laptop time though!

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As court proceedings kicked off, Caroline filled our news feeds for a couple of weeks. This was one of our favourite memes. The grippy meme took over.

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Things were not looking good for SBF.

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After a lot of rambling and sticking his foot in it, the verdict was in. Guilty.

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The FTX Ripple Effect

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Retail investors were rekt. The big boys were rekt too. Genesis was tied up in the FTX situation and the Winklevii wanted their money. ‍

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But Barry disagreed.‍

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Spicy tweets on CT ensued.‍

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‍‍It would not end well for Genesis.

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CZ and Binance Catching Heat

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CZ had survived the bear market… or so we thought. Back in April Cobie posted a cryptic tweet.

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The market shit it’s pants as a result.

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It even caused heart attacks!

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CZ responded with his rendition of “4”.

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The legal battles would continue and the US was coming after Binance and their CEO.‍

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The US wanted a sizeable chunk of change from Binance.

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Another hero looked like he had fallen. CZ was forced to step down as the CEO of Binance.‍

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But he was a winner in our eyes.

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Curve On The Brink

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Curve is a DeFi staple for and has been chugging along in the background with a huge TVL but little drama, apart from the Curve wars. In 2023 that would change. Back in June focus was placed on Mich’s big positions.

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Everyone started talking about his $40 million dollar house.

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In July there would be a hack. Was Mich on shaky ground?

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The MEV bots stepped in and made some serious profit.‍

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However, c0ffeebabe.eth is good people. They returned the proceeds to the Curve deployer.‍

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Mich would start selling CRV OTC to protect his positions. What a champ.

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And all would be well in the end.

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Do Kwon Caught

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The Luna collapse was also a catalyst for the recent bear market. Do Kwon was on the run but was apprehended in Montenegro.

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Inscript-ooors

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A renegade Bitcoiner would cause a stir with the maxis as he launched Ordinals, “digital artifacts native to the Bitcoin blockchain” or “NFTs on Bitcoin” ‍for short.‍

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Some prominent Bitcoiners thought this was a massive waste.‍

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But there was pushback. Shitcoin.com Director of Autistic Communications, Bryan Micon, was quick to point out that SODAPEPENSKI on-chain might make this worth it.‍

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The NFTs were just one part of it. Tokens were springing up. ORDI started its run, and it kept running. At the time of writing its market cap is upwards of $1.6B.

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The innovation would continue. Mike In Space launched Stamps!‍

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Ledger Under Scrutiny

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It has been a rough year for Ledger. The hardware wallet has come under scrutiny for several situations as of late. Back in April, they advertised that it’s a good idea to walk around with a Ledger on a chain. RIP.‍

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There were also security concerns. With their new “Recover” product, your keys might not be your keys.‍

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It got real bad this month as a Ledger library was compromised. With many platforms utilizing the library, it meant doing anything DeFi-related for a few hours was a risk.

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Supposedly a former employee, who still had Github access, got phished. Now that’s some terrible OPSEC.

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Justin Sun Re-invented

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In 2023 Justin Sun was unbothered, moisturized, happy, and in his own lane. All of that despite reports that he had lost his diplomatic immunity.‍

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He was back to his regular programming much of the year though. He is reinventing himself.

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The Hacks

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2023 saw its fair share of hacks, scams and rugs. They were everywhere. Luke Dashjr supposedly lost it all.‍

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There were rumours of problems at Multichain.‍

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Those rumours were true.‍

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Those funds went poof! Estimates come in at $230M lost all in all because of Multichain.

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This next one isn’t necessarily a scam, but it was a fun story. One Uniswap employee deployed a token with a similar name to a popular project. He then removed the liquidity, which led to him being labelled a rug puller.

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He denied this claim.‍

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A‍nd unfortunately, this meant he was no longer a Uniswap employee.

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The king of on-chain sleuths, ZachXBT had an interesting year, as he was sued by MachiBigBrother for an article he published.

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But after some heavy public support in Zach’s favour, the lawsuit was pulled.

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Rollbit Degeneracy

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Degenerate 1000x trading temporarily took over our timelines as Rollbit got some attention. They brought on some of the apes and went wild with the influencer marketing.‍

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However, many thought that the crypto casino was cancer.‍

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Eye Scanning

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Eyeball scanning had its moment this year as Worldcoin launched its token. Their incentives for market makers provided some interesting price speculation.

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The plebs joined the queue to get their airdrop.

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Shitcoin Gains

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While the market slowly climbed in 2023, some were making millions on shitcoins. It all started with PEPE.‍

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But users were not safe. Rugs were everywhere.‍

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The Solana Pump

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The attention moved eventually to Solana, with the degens flooding to the blockchain to trade shitcoins. This also coincided with a sizeable pump in Solana’s price, as it went over $120. Many millions were made.

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But many millions were also lost.

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Some of our Favourite Memes

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In the final category of this roundup, we bring you some of the best memes that we saw throughout the year. There were plenty. We start with a potent reminder. Never forget.

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