There's been a lot of doom and gloom in the crypto markets this year — but some glimmers of good news.
Yes, we're all battered and bruised after a punishing bear market. But if you look closely enough, you'll see that there were plenty of nice news stories to celebrate, too. As our festive series comes to a close, here's a look back at some of the upbeat items that CoinMarketCap Alexandra covered in 2022.
1. An incredible stroke of luck. Right at the start of the year, a Bitcoin miner beat odds of 1 in 1.36 million in order to earn a block reward. This isn't an easy thing to do — especially considering that major mining pools dominate the landscape. They ended up pocketing 6.25 BTC, which was worth $266,235 back then.
2. NFTs turn young man into a millionaire. We also brought you the uplifting story of Ghozali Ghozalu, who had started taking a selfie every day when he was 18. He decided to transform them into NFTs — and when they were listed on OpenSea, trading volumes raced past $1.2 million. It's a truly life-changing sum of money.
3. Crypto investors were generous. More than 15,000 ETH was raised for AssangeDAO in early 2022 — and crypto worth over $100 million was also pledged to support Ukrainian troops. Exchanges also did their part, with Kraken offering $1,000 to every Ukrainian user who had opened an account before the war began.
4. Taking steps to educate the masses. Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey launched an academy devoted to offering free lessons about Bitcoin. Residents of Marcy Houses — the area in Brooklyn where Jay-Z grew up — were eligible to enroll. Kids aged 5 to 17 were also given the chance to learn about programming, giving them crucial skills for the future.
5. Bitcoin 2022 was bigger and better than ever. This year's flagship conference in Miami was held at a cavernous venue complete with a volcano and tens of thousands of attendees. Even though the crypto market was cooling, it was heartening to see so many people turn out to learn more about the world's biggest cryptocurrency.
6. Muse made history. The British rock band decided to release their latest album in NFT form — and it quickly rocketed all the way to #1 in the charts. This was the first time that an NFT album had achieved such a feat. and with a growing number of musicians experimenting with digital collectibles, it certainly won't be the last.
7. Crypto seized from North Korean hackers for the first time ever. Chainalysis said over $30 million that was taken in the Ronin Bridge hack ended up being retrieved. Advanced tracing techniques were used "to follow stolen funds to cash out points and liaise with law enforcement and industry players to quickly freeze funds."
8. Bloomberg Businessweek devotes an entire issue to crypto. In total, 40,000 words was written about the highs and lows of digital assets by Matt Levine. This is only the second time that Bloomberg Businessweek has been dominated by a single article in 93 years. (In case you're curious, the first time was for a piece called What Is Code?")
9. Ethereum successfully switched to Proof-of-Stake. The Merge was a huge undertaking that had been planned for years. There was something pretty joyous and historic about watching it unfold on live streams — with developers gleefully shouting when PoS was activated.
10. Crypto Twitter thrived. It's never been easier to find real-time information about how the crypto markets work — and on Twitter Spaces, it's common to see industry heavyweights answer questions from the public. This transparency is to be celebrated, especially during a time of turbulence and uncertainty.
