Alex Coin This 2021 has undoubtedly been an exciting year for the digital digital technologies are these electronic tools that have the ability to generate, store or even process data. currencies space. Get to know the ten events that marked the crypto space.
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It has been an extremely exciting twelve months for the crypto world.
Amid a second year hit by the coronavirus pandemic, digital currency adoption continued to rise across the globe and the crypto industry flourished to conquer new historic milestones. The new year started off in good fortune with the digital currency market an area or arena, online or offline, in which commercial dealings are conducted. on an upward movement that led to Bitcoin the biggest and most popular cryptocurrency in the world. It is a decentralized digital currency that enables users to make trustless peer-to-peer transactions. over USD $40,000 for the first time in its history.
Companies in the sector hit the stock market, some jurisdictions tightened their regulations around crypto, the metaverse ceased to be a term from science fiction to become reality and one nation even adopted a Bitcoin as its official currency. These were some of the highlights of 2021, and if you missed them don’t worry.
In this issue,DiarioBitcoincompiles the top 10 most notable events in the cryptocurrency cryptocurrencies are digital currencies that use cryptographic technologies to secure their operation. space of the year. It should be noted that many of these achievements pushed the price of the flagship cryptocurrency to new heights and set trends during the year. Following the chronological order of events, let’s take a look at what made a mark in the cryptosphere this 2021.
1. America saw its first Bitcoin ETF
Earlier this year, regulators in Canada approved the the first exchange-traded fund (ETF) backed by Bitcoin . The investment product, called Purpose Bitcoin ETF an Exchange-traded Fund, an investment fund that users trade on exchanges and trading platforms. y based on the major cryptocurrency, was the first of its kind in the Americas. Over the course of 2021, the North American country saw the debut of other ETFs from Bitcoin as well as the primer ETF of Ethereum a decentralized open-source blockchain with smart contracts functionality. of history.
The attitude of the Canadian regulators was decisive and cleared the way for other cryptocurrency ETFs on the continent. In South America, exchanges in countries like Chile and Brazil listed the product, and soon Brazil debuted its own cryptocurrency ETF. Then, towards the end of the year, the United States also saw such an investment vehicle for the first time, after years of waiting.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in October approved the first U.S. equity equity is the funds that would be returned to a company's shareholders if all of the company's assets were dissolved and all debts were paid off in the event of liquidation. futures a futures contract is a standardized legal agreement to buy or sell a particular commodity or asset at a predetermined price at a specified time in the future. ETF. Bitcoin . The product of ProShares debuted on the NYSE marking a historic moment for crypto. Other ETFs of Bitcoin futures-backed ETFs have since been launched, although many are still waiting for a futures-backed ETF to be launched. Bitcoin in cash.
2. Beeple sold the most expensive NFT non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are cryptocurrencies that do not possess the property of fungibility. in history.
One event that had a big impact on the space was the auction an auction is a public sale through a bidding process where an asset is sold to the highest bidder. of a million-dollar piece of art in the form of a token a digital unit designed with utility in mind, providing access and use of a larger crypto economic system. Non-fungible (NFT). It was the work “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days“a collage of JPG images made by the digital artist Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple that was sold for the staggering USD $69 million at the beginning of March.
The sale not only caught the attention of all the news outlets about digital collectibles, but also broke several records and marked the beginning of a much larger trend within the space. The artwork was the first 100% digital, NFT, crypto-option artwork to be included in an auction of Christie’s . It is also one of the most expensive pieces of art by a living artist.
Christie’s is proud to offer “Everydays – The First 5000 Days” by @beeple as the first purely digital work of art ever offered by a major auction house. Bidding will be open from Feb 25-Mar 11.
Learn more herehttps://t.co/srx95HCE0o | NFT issued in partnership w/ @makersplaceco pic.twitter.com/zymq2DSjy7
— Christie’s (@ChristiesInc)February 16, 2021
After this event, the NFT market exploded into a highly lucrative trend. Big name brands, athletes, celebrities, social media platforms, musicians, filmmakers, billionaires… and basically everyone has started to embrace digital collectibles this 2021, a growing trend that, for now, seems to be unstoppable.
3. Bancos de Wall Street adoptaron Bitcoin
In March 2021, the giant investment bank will Morgan Stanley made history after becoming the first major bank in the United States to offer its clients exposure to Bitcoin . At the time, the 90-year-old bank announced that its high net worth clients could gain access to funds from the leading digital asset for the first time.
The move represented a complete game changer for the titans of Wall Street (as well as for banks around the world ), who were quick to follow in the footsteps of Morgan Stanley . Over the past few months, well-known names such as Goldman Sachs , JPMorgan y Wells Fargo also opened up to digital currencies; some are even investing actively in the market.
More recent reports suggest that at least a dozen large banks in the U.S. are exploring the use of Bitcoin as collateral collateral is any asset that a lender accepts as a form of security to ensure that the borrower repays a loan. for cash cash is the most liquid form of money: physical coins and banknotes in the most narrow sense of the term. loans.
4. Coinbase went public
This year also saw one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges hit the U.S. stock market. Coinbase is an American company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform. started trading at Nasdaq The company had a dream debut on the stock market after registering a 70% increase in its share price during the launch day. The company had a dream debut on the stock market after registering a 70% increase in its share price during the launch day.
The arrival of Coinbase to the stock market represented a game changer for some traditional investors, who sought the firm’s shares as a more traditional way to gain exposure to the vibrant crypto market. On the other hand, the move also motivated other companies in the industry to go public. Exchanges such as Kraken y Blockchain.com have already announced plans to go public.
Meanwhile, the exchange businesses that allow customers to trade cryptocurrencies for fiat money or other cryptocurrencies. has continued to grow to position itself as the largest digital currency trading platform a place to buy, sell and store cryptocurrency in the country; although its stock has not enjoyed as much success, as its price has steadily declined since launch.
5. China banned cryptocurrencies
The digital asset industry faced one of the biggest bans in history this 2021. In the middle of the year, Chinese authorities began cracking down on cryptocurrency operations, halting the trading of digital assets and ultimately putting a brake on the growing cryptocurrency industry locally.
The restrictive mining a process where blocks are added to a blockchain, verifying transactions. It is also the process through which new bitcoin or some altcoins are created. policies soon turned into a manhunt that forced miners contributors to a blockchain taking part in the process of mining. They can be professional miners or organizations with large-scale operations, or hobbyists who set up mining rigs at home or in the office. from Bitcoin to relocate to other countries. Meanwhile, the Chinese government continued to toughen its actions and redoubled its crackdown on crypto. The crackdown hit a tipping point in September, when the Chinese People’s Bank of China declared all transactions illegal with digital currencies.
(Although the Asian powerhouse had already instituted a previous ban in 2017, this measure has been the most severe to date.)
The ban had a profound impact on the digital currencies space at the time, including a sharp price decline for Bitcoin . The hash a hash is the output result of a hashing algorithm, which creates a unique, fixed-length string to encrypt and secure a certain selection of arbitrary data. rate of the largest cryptocurrency also fell and China lost its dominant place in the mining industry. However, the event was also a valuable lesson: Bitcoin recovered and continued its course despite the massive restriction.
6. Bitcoin became a legal currency currency is a medium of exchange that defines value.
It’s 2021, Bitcoin celebrated one of the greatest achievements in its history when the first country in the world adopted it as its official currency; something that perhaps not even its creator Satoshi the smallest unit of bitcoin with a value of 0.00000001 BTC. Nakamoto could have anticipated when he invented the cryptocurrency more than 10 years ago.
In June, El Salvador enacted a law that declared Bitcoin as legal tender in that nation. The regulation, which came into force in September, quickly grabbed the attention of all news media, both national and international. Although widely criticized by some governments, banks and a large percentage of the population, cryptocurrency enthusiasts from all latitudes have applauded the legislation.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who proposed the adoption, has since become a predominant figure within the crypto community as he pushes various strategies to leverage money that a trader borrows from a brokerage, enabling them to gain far greater exposure to a position than what their capital allows. the cryptocurrency. The Central American nation not only admits Bitcoin as an official currency but instead mines, invests and has a fund to finance infrastructure projects, all with crypto.
7. DeFi a movement encouraging alternatives to traditional, centralized forms of financial services. went on to become a multi-billion dollar industry.
During 2021, the decentralized decentralization refers to the property of a system in which nodes or actors work in concert in a distributed fashion to achieve a common goal. finance (DeFi) space also experienced accelerated growth, a phenomenon that had already been observed during the previous year and seemed to gain even more momentum this year.
DeFi became a over $200 billion dollar industry in October, when the space broke the record in terms of total value locked up (TVL), or funds pledged as collateral under the various DeFi protocols. Then in early December it broke the record again with over USD $260 billion in LTV.
DeFi’s growth was accompanied by the positioning of new blockchain a distributed ledger system. A sequence of blocks, or units of digital information, stored consecutively in a public database. The basis for cryptocurrencies. platforms that began to gain traction in this space. Solana, Avalanche, Terra y BSC were some of the blockchains of smart contracts that saw their DeFi ecosystems grow, a trend that shows that the competition among Ethereum and other platforms is being stoked.
8. Facebook plunged into the metaverse a metaverse is a digital universe that contains all the aspects of the real world, such as real-time interactions and economies. It offers a unique experience to end-users.
The social media giant, Facebook, changed its name in November to become Meta and focus on the metaverse, a move that triggered widespread interest in virtual worlds.
The concept of science fiction, which refers to the encounter between the physical and virtual world through technologies such as augmented reality, NFT and others, quickly became a global trend that now includes brands such as Adidas, TIME, Nike and Pepsi . Even Wall Street banks have taken an interest and anticipate that the metaverse could become a multi-billion dollar business.
In addition to changing its business model to focus on building its own virtual world, Meta also made other notable advances this 2021; including the launch of its billetera digital Novi and its integration with the WhatsApp messaging platform, a move that could potentially boost the adoption of digital currencies around the world.
It should be noted that Meta wasn’t the only social network to enjoy notable crypto advancements. Twitter also revolutionized the space this year when it launched a feature that allows its users to post tips from Bitcoin through Lightning Network a network refers to all nodes in the operation of a blockchain at any given moment in time. .
9. China launched its CBDC and other countries followed.
This year, China continued to move forward with the testing of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) that it had started in 2020. Several local banks shops, retail stores, the Beijing subway and a few ATMs The digital yuan was tested by the city’s automated teller machines. The Chinese digital payment system, also called e-CNY, was also tested in lotteries and payroll payments for civil servants.
By November, 140 million Chinese people, the equivalent of 10% of the country’s population The Chinese government had already activated its digital yuan wallet a place where cryptocurrency users can store, send and receive digital assets. and expects to continue expanding it. By 2022, the Asian powerhouse hopes to test its CBDC on a large scale during the Winter Olympics to be held in Beijing.
Meanwhile, other nations around the world also advanced their CBDC developments. The central banks of more than 80 countries are exploring the issuance of digital currencies, including Sweden and South Korea, which are currently running pilot programs. Nations such as The Bahamas and Nigeria have already launched their CBDCs.
More than a one-off event, the developments at the various CBDCs were a series of events that shaped a trend that was seen throughout 2021 and will most likely continue to evolve next year.
10. Bitcoin conquered new price heights
The widespread adoption and the various historical events that marked the digital currency industry had a great effect on the market of digital currencies. Bitcoin which recorded several new price records throughout the year.
At the beginning of 2021, the flagship cryptocurrency far surpassed its peak of $20,000 recorded in 2017. After that, it continued to break records to reach a price peak very close refers to the closing price; similar to the same term used in stock trading. to USD $70.000 in November, while its market capitalization surpassed $1.2 trillion for the first time, its highest value to date.
Amidst the price increases of the flagship cryptocurrency, the digital currency market also experienced records, seeing for the first time in history a total global capitalization of nearly $3 trillion.
It should be noted that, in addition to breaking in the world of cryptocurrencies, breaking the forward compatibility of cryptoassets is seen in hard forks of a cryptocurrency. price records, Bitcoin also experienced his highest rate of hashrate a milestone for the mining of this cryptocurrency. At the same time, Bitcoin became more scarce this year: 90% of the total supply of the cryptocurrency has been mined already .
Article by Hannah Estefania Perez / DiarioBitcoin
Imagen de Unsplash
