January

2021 has just ended. Bitcoin opens the yearly candle at $46,000. Ethereum opens at $3,600. Many people are optimistic and convinced that the bull market is not over yet. PlanB, popular analyst for his Stock-to-flow model, predicts that we will have an average price of $100,000.

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Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador, makes some bold predictions.

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February

The cryptocurrency scene reaches the masses through the Superbowl to 100-200 million people. Ads featured by Coinbase, Crypto.com and FTX are plastered everywhere. News outlets, social media, pretty much everywhere is ecstatic.

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Coinbase' famous DVD bouncing QR code ad

FTX ad featuring Larry David, saying to not “miss out” on the next big thing, crypto

Crypto.com ad with Lebron James, “Fortune favors the brave”

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March

Ethereum sidechain Ronin (built for Axie Infinity) has it's bridge hacked, losing 173,600 Ether and 25.5 million USDC for a combined value of over $600 million. Remains one of the largest crypto hacks ever.

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With the help of the FBI, they find out how this hack was executed. Through LinkedIn.

According to The Block, hackers — identified by the US government as North Korean group Lazarus — targeted employees of Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis. They reportedly reached out over LinkedIn on behalf of a fake company, and when employees took the bait, they proceeded with multiple rounds of fake job interviews and then an “extremely generous” fake compensation package. The con culminated in one senior engineer clicking a PDF supposedly containing the official offer — at which point hackers first compromised the engineer’s computer, then four of the nine nodes used to validate financial transactions on Sky Mavis’ Ronin blockchain. – Full article

April

Bitcoin Miami is here. People from all around the world come together to listen to presentations of new products, mining companies, rich investors, etc.

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Although sentiment rises from the conference, prices start to get rocky. Bitcoin falls 17% from $45,000 to $37,000. Ethereum also drops approximately 17% from $3,300 to $2,700 by the end of the month.

Benjamin Cowen's analysis of Bitcoin's bull market support band

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May

Terra's collapse begins. It starts with LUNA falling apart from $100 to $80, to $40, to $20, to $10, to fractions of a penny. It's a bloodbath. Terra's stablecoin UST falls to $0.80, holds for a couple days, then falls off too. I remember following this day by day and the environment was insane.

Do Kwon goes silent for a while, then finally tries to explain.

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Full Twitter thread here.

Bitcoin drops 15% but has wicks down 30%. Ethereum drops 30% too. People who were overinvested are devastated. Stories of suicide unfortunately come up.

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'I lost over $450k USD, I cannot pay the bank. I will lose my home soon. I'll become homeless. Suicide is the only way out for me,' one wrote.

'I'm going through some of the darkest, most severe mental pain of my life. It still doesn't seem real that I lost $US180,000… When I make it through this, I'll be stronger then ever,' another added.

'Bro, my little brother lost his entire net worth £350,000, gone like that. I've lent him 5k and he's moved in with me,' a third wrote. – Article link

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June

Luna-3AC contagion begins. The extreme market downturn leads companies who took risks with leveraging customer assets dead. Celsius halts withdrawals. If you don't own your keys, it's not your coins. Trying to keep this short as I know everyone is likely sick of hearing this story.

Alex Mashinsky, CEO of Celsius, asked if customer funds are safe

Crypto influencer “CryptosRUs” believes we have either hit the bottom or near

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Bitcoin also falls below the 200 week moving average, what a lot of analysts used to use as a bottom indicator. Now no one talks about it as it didn't work as a bottom indicator.

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Some analysts like Crypto Rover, believe we're still going to put in new all time highs.

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September

Ethereum completes the Merge. Livestream moment

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October

Bitcoin continues hovering around the $20,000 range. Goes up 5%. Ethereum holds and goes up 14%. People believe June was the bottom.

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November

Keeping this short because most people already know the whole story. The FTX collapse begins. Withdrawals are halted, only to declare bankruptcy a couple days later. The exchange token, FTT, nosedives. Investigations are launched on the operations of the exchange.

Bitcoin drops to a new low of $15,000, shocking those who thought June was the bottom. Ethereum drops too, but does not put in a new low.

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December

The market is quiet, seemingly dead. No one is really engaged with crypto on the mainstream side. A lot of frauds were washed out. People who came in to try and make a quick buck are now fed up and gone. Bitcoin closes the year at $16,500. Ethereum closes at $1,200.

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Key takeaways

Despite how big Quadriga and Mt Gox was back then, it still happened again to new investors.

If we get a next bull market, I think there will be another Luna/FTX. Maybe not exact but something similar. A super popular crypto game or something that asks users to put funds in to earn yield. The next wave will come in, lock up their coins for yield, and the idea of self custody will be forgotten or shrugged off again. I'll never forget, and won't use such platforms.

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Not your keys, not your coins.

Personally, I was fortunate enough to not lose funds to any scams or hacks or insolvent crypto businesses last year. I bought a hardware wallet sometime early 2022 and had already transferred put my funds long before the exchange/yield farm collapses. Did my research with Quadriga and Mt Gox and I owed it to myself that I wouldn't make that same mistake.

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Crypto “analysts” can't predict anything. They're all just throwing a blind dart and seeing what sticks. Price predictions are useless.

I didn't follow too much of these guys but one of the few I followed and still follow is Benjamin Cowen. His theory of lengthening cycles made so much sense, the cycles did seem to be getting longer. But even with every piece of valid evidence he had, he was wrong. It's all just entertainment for me now. Something I can listen to pass the time. PlanB was wrong, most were.

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Perhaps the biggest for me, take time away from charts. Markets aren't going anywhere. Things take a long time to play out even for something like crypto. If I stopped looking at the charts sooner I would have saved a lot more time away just to come back to lower prices. Go outside and have fun.

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Thanks for reading

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