20 major events in the encryption circle in 2020

Original source: Mengyan Finance

Key points:

1) This year, Despite some disruption around the world due to the impact of the pandemic, the crypto industry has emerged victorious, with Bitcoin and Ethereum leading the charge.

2) Encryption believers will regard 2020 as the year when institutional investors finally start to take an interest in Bitcoin, and it is also the year when DeFi begins to blossom.

3) Despite regulatory challenges ahead, signs of mainstream adoption are emerging.

However you look at it, 2020 has been a year of massive change in the crypto industry and beyond.

The black swan sweeping the world has wreaked havoc, upending the lives of millions of people in every corner of the globe. The coronavirus has claimed more than 1.5 million lives so far, not to mention the economic damage caused by prolonged lockdowns.

Crypto industry proves its antifragility

The world's socio-political landscape has also undergone major upheavals, fueled by the virality of social media following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. Outrage over his killing led to massive protests around the world in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

These events affect everyone. However, some industries are still thriving in this unique environment.

With much of the world on hold due to COVID-19, the cryptocurrency space has ushered in its most meaningful one of the year. The market continued to run 24 hours a day, and Bitcoin did not fluctuate greatly when DeFi broke out. In addition, waves of new users entering the encryption field also proved that those who survived the encryption winter of 18 and 19 People are right.

While nothing in the cryptocurrency industry is predictable, the past 12 months have many believers looking forward to the future.

Right now, what we can really conclude is that 2020 is the year that changed the world, and cryptocurrencies are here to stay, if not flourish.

Here are the 20 events that defined the year.

1. The end of the bear market

The price of Bitcoin at the beginning of the year was around $7195, while the price of Ethereum was only $129, a drop of 91% compared to the historical high two years ago .

2018 and 2019 were not good years for any of the leading cryptocurrencies, marking the fallout from the 2017 bull market for cryptocurrencies "death". However, the market started 2020 with a recovery, raising hopes that the bear market is over. By mid-February, ethereum had doubled in price, while bitcoin broke the critical $10,000 resistance mark.

For those paying close attention, the crypto industry appears to be showing signs of life again.

2. bZx Flash Loan Attack

Flash Loan allows DeFi users without providing collateral Under the premise that the loan can be repaid in the same transaction, funds can be borrowed without limit.

This tool has generated a lot of discussion this year, and not all of it is positive. Since the innovation surfaced, some high-end DeFi users have exploited it on a large scale, which has also raised questions about whether it will have long-term positive or negative effects.

The debate started with bZx in February, after nearly $1 million was siphoned off in two attacks, and there have been countless others since similar attacks.

3, Black Thursday

In December 2019, the outbreak of the new crown epidemic in Wuhan began, but It wasn't until early 2020 that the rest of the world began to deal with the outbreak.

By March 11, recorded cases worldwide had jumped to 118,000, and the World Health Organization has declared the disease a pandemic. The next day, Trump also suspended travel from Europe to the United States.

The reaction of the crypto market was panic, which also triggered a massive sell-off of cryptocurrencies known as "Black Thursday".

Bitcoin and Ethereum fell 50% in one day as investors scrambled to safety. Due to network congestion during the peak period, many investors are restricted from adjusting their mortgage debt positions, and Maker also suffered huge losses due to the loss of DAI, so the plunge led to liquidation.  

4. China opens the number Currency Race

When Europe and the United States experienced the first round of lock-ups in April, China launched the digital renminbi, which opened the prelude to the world's digital currency race .

It's unclear what a cashless world means for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, but we know other governments are now following China's lead.

The need for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) has also become a bigger focus for leaders this year as the novel coronavirus spurs a shift to digital currencies.

5, halving

Every four years, the block paid to Bitcoin miners The block reward will be halved. Affectionately known as the “halving,” it has also become a topic of debate, with people divided over whether the event will trigger new highs in bitcoin prices.

The most recent halving occurred on May 11, and BTC has also experienced subsequent price increases, in line with historical data.

Of course, there are several other factors at play in the Bitcoin explosion.

6. Issuing COMP tokens

DeFi began to bear fruit in the first half of this year, and Maker dominates this market. That changed when Compound launched its governance token, COMP, in mid-June, kicking off a wave of “yield farming.”

COMP achieved a 400% gain within the first week, peaking at $372.

After the token release, the Compound protocol TVL surpassed MakerDAO, but this did not last long, and at this time, the DeFi craze had just begun.

7, YFI fair sale

When liquidity mining became the focus of DeFi users, Andre Cronje established the aggregation protocol yEarn.Finance to "optimize the rate of return" in various protocols.

Subsequently, yEarn launched its own token YFI in July, and its "fair launch" process has also won the favor of the community. Despite establishing the protocol, Cronje did not receive any YFI tokens — he had to participate in yield farming like the rest of the yEarn community.

This move was praised by many people in the DeFi field, and YFI also skyrocketed, reaching a peak of $43,678 in September. “yEarn” has since announced multiple integrations and launched a V2 vault. At press time, YFI is worth around $25,020.

8. Liquidity mining frenzy

At first, the enthusiasm for compound income cultivation has arrived In midsummer, it has turned into a frenzy.

At that time, various "food token" protocols emerged, providing a generous rate of return for any DeFi user who provided liquidity. One of them is a fork of the decentralized exchange Uniswap, namely "sushi" SushiSwap; the other is "sour cucumber" Pickle Finance.

Furthermore, the most notorious food token is an unaudited project called YAM, whose base token uses an innovative reset ( rebasing) mechanism. The YAM hype lasted less than 48 hours, but pulled in more than $100 million before a bug caused the overminted supply of YAM tokens.

Then the community rescued the project by delegating their supply of governance tokens, but the project never fully recovered. And the yield farming frenzy is coming to an end, too.

9. The influx of institutional funds< /h4>

2020 is the year the long-awaited institutional money flows into Bitcoin.

One of the key turning points was the announcement of legendary investor Paul Tudor Jones to allocate 1% of his portfolio to the leading cryptocurrency, followed by Michael Saylor's 4.25 $100 million purchase, adding bitcoin to Microstrategy's stockpile of assets (he's also since become a strong supporter of bitcoin, buying at least another $50 million worth of bitcoin).

But they're not alone: Big names including Citibank, Grayscale and Stanley Druckenmiller have all started advocating digital currencies this year.

As the Federal Reserve prints trillions of dollars to fight the coronavirus, investors see bitcoin, the 'digital gold', as a hedge against inflation .

10. Airdrop stimulus

As the US government announced a $1,200 stimulus package to help people cope with COVID-19, the "money printer go brrrr" meme started going viral.

But when the decentralized exchange When Uniswap airdropped 400 tokens to anyone trading on the protocol before September 1, 2020, members of the DeFi community started finding themselves comparing the two.

UNI tokens initially traded at $3 and liquidity providers were generously rewarded in what has been described as the most successful One of the airdrops. This airdrop is to make Uniswap more decentralized by handing over the governance of the protocol to the community.

11. DeFi TVL reached 10 billion US dollars

At the beginning of the year, DeFi’s TVL was only In more than 600 million dollars. It wasn't until the summer that the field really started to take off.

By mid-September, the TVL of DeFi protocols running on Ethereum exceeded $10 billion. At the same time, the monthly active users of Metmask (Fox Wallet) also reached 1 million. Today, the TVL of DeFi is close to $15 billion.

As the field grows, key metrics Shows that decentralized finance is here to stay.

12. PayPal turns to be optimistic about encryption Currencies

In a year of increased mainstream attention around bitcoin, perhaps the biggest surprise was PayPal's adoption of the cryptocurrency. In October, the payments giant announced plans to integrate and launch a service for buying BTC, ETH, LTC, and BCH.

Unprecedented demand for services has led PayPal to increase cryptocurrency withdrawal limits before all U.S. customers can enable purchases. PayPal CEO Dan Schulman declared that he is "bullish on all kinds of digital currencies."

The service has indicated that it will soon offer fiat currency payments.

13. Biden was elected the 46th President of the United States

As the news media announced Bitcoin has plummeted after Biden was elected president of the United States, although the long-term impact of Biden on the cryptocurrency space remains to be seen.

Nonetheless, encryption enthusiasts are still optimistic about Biden. For example, FTX, an encrypted derivatives exchange operated by SBF, donated more than $5 million to Biden to help He campaigned (it was the second-largest donation Biden received).

Notably, the president-elect's financial policy transition team will be led by former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Gary Gensler.

In addition, Biden has never publicly condemned Bitcoin like his predecessor Trump, which may bode well for the future of the encryption field.

14. Stablecoins against hyperinflation

Stablecoin adoption has skyrocketed in 2020, and not just through DeFi users adding collateral to protocols. Arguably the biggest moment for stablecoins was Circle’s partnerships with Bolivia Venezuela and Airtm.

Backed by the U.S. government, the initiative aims to combat hyperinflation in Venezuela by providing a safe form of currency to healthcare workers and those in need .

This is the first example of digital currency being used for foreign aid, but it won't be the last.

15. The discovery of the new crown vaccine

November 9, Pfizer-BioNTech The announcement of a COVID-19 vaccine that is 90% effective is a hopeful sign. Subsequently, Moderna announced that its treatment was 95% effective, and the UK became the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Whether a successful vaccine will directly affect cryptocurrencies is unclear, but there are a few possible outcomes: Big Pharma wins, young people around the world Will go out to spend, and the market will remain at risk.

16. Bitcoin hits a record high

The historical highest price of Bitcoin is debatable. While many exchanges recorded highs around $19,600 in December 2017, some believe the digital currency needs to breach its key $20,000 level to record new highs.

Bitcoin may have broken its record price in early December, when it topped out at $19,860. At this point, however, conventional all-time highs don’t particularly matter: Bitcoin has been on a tear since establishing $10,000 as a key support level in 2017.

With its price already doubling since August and a renewed interest in the asset from many respected figures, there are every indications that going into 2021 After that, Bitcoin may have further room for growth.  

17, Ethereum 2.0 Release

Ethereum 2.0 has been talked about in the crypto community for years. The upgrade to Ethereum was first proposed at the end of 2018, but Vitalik Buterin was already writing the proof-of-stake mechanism of the blockchain as early as 2014.

After multiple delays, Phase 0 of Ethereum 2.0 was announced in early November, while the Beacon Chain, which launches staking, is scheduled to go live on December 1st.

The pledge contract must receive 524288ETH to go online as scheduled. After the slow pledge, the Ethereum community united in the last 24 hours before the deadline and deposited 200,000 ETH.

On December 1st, the successful deployment of the beacon chain also marked the beginning of the road to Serenity.

Currently, more than 1 million ETH has been deposited as pledge, and its price has reached a one-year high; today it is worth about $600. If nothing else, Ethereum 2.0 will be launched in the next few years.

18. Visa added USDC payment

Visa announced the establishment of a partnership with Circle to enable USDC payment to cover 60 million worldwide merchant. The company will also issue a card specifically for sending and receiving USDC payments. USDC is an ERC-20 token designed to match USD prices, running on Ethereum.

In other words, Visa is slowly starting to adopt Ethereum and is ready to help the world adopt Ethereum.

19, S&P Dow Jones announced the launch of the cryptocurrency index

S&P Dow Jones introduced in detail The plan to introduce a cryptocurrency index in 2021 adds new content to portfolios that include the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company will partner with blockchain firm Lukka to receive data on more than 550 cryptocurrencies.

This news says one thing first: mainstream adoption is on the way.

20. The U.S. Congress issued the "Stable Coin Act"

For encryption technology, One of the most controversial moments came at the end of the year when the US Congress introduced the Stablecoin Act.

The bill was billed as a way to combat "the risks posed by emerging digital payments," specifically Facebook's Libra (now renamed Diem ) and its stablecoins. Its key proponents have openly raised dubious arguments about the associated criminal risks and alleged centralization of Ethereum nodes, which has drawn backlash from the crypto community.

Whatever the future of cryptocurrencies in 2021 and beyond How optimistic the outlook will be, the formulation of the "Stable Coin Bill" also confirms that the authorities are paying close attention to the encryption field.

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