Cryptocurrencies and blockchain develop every day, and even if you didn’t notice the little changes it faces, it doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. Every small step matters, this why crypto stays one of the most rapidly growing spheres.

Spring has already begun — however, it’s important to make a summary of winter events in the Crypto World. Let’s take a quick look at what happened in the last three months and how it affected the industry.

The collapse of FTX

Even though the crash of the large crypto exchange took place in November, the consequences were (and still are) continuing to be one of the most discussed incidents in the crypto sector. FTX filed for bankruptcy right after a surge of users’ withdrawals. Founder of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, said that they didn't have enough assets in reserve to meet customer demand.

This caused an investigation during which it turned out Bankman-Fried played a foul game. If you want to know more details about what happened, check out our previous article dedicated to FTX collapse and another one to see what the post-FTX world looks like.

Stablecoins war

On December 8, one of the largest crypto exchanges, Coinbase, called for its customers to switch from Tether to the USDC. Now, Coinbase is associated with the USDC stablecoins which it calls “trusted” and “reputable”. To encourage the users to swap tokens, the platform announced that the transfer will be zero-fee. This move came after the USDC faced losses from Binance's decision to delist the coin in September. In response, the representatives of Tether called the actions of Coinbase “inappropriate” and “desperate”. More on the topic is here.

$3 billion withdrawals on Binance

Another notable event, is that already mentioned crypto exchange Binance, saw literally huge withdrawals this winter. On December 13, an amount equal to more than $3 billion was reportedly withdrawn from the exchange. At some point, Binance even had to halt withdrawals of USDC stablecoin for 8 hours. Some customers were afraid that Binance might repeat the story of FTX. However, it never happened and the CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, called this a “normal market behavior” and said that the situation has stabilized already.

Metaverse in Vietnam and South Korea

These two countries are planning to launch a number of blockchain and metaverse projects together. $13 million will be invested in the realization of the idea. Politicians consider such measures helpful for improving the economic situation and the relations between Vietnam and South Korea. We’ll see if there will be any interesting and promising concepts coming from this collaboration!

Donald Trump and NFT

The ex-president of the United States, Donald Trump, has launched a controversial NFT collection. On December 15, he announced that his brand new NFT collection was available for purchase on OpenSea. People raised many questions about the quality of the NFTs. However, 45,000 pieces priced at $99 for each one, were sold within 24 hours. Impressive, isn’t it?

European crypto restrictions

On December 7, the European council announced new rules concerning the ban of anonymous crypto transactions above €1,000. The regulatory restrictions for such financial operations will become stricter. Lawmakers believe that these measures will fight money laundering and other illegal activities.

BTC price jump

At the beginning of January, the price of Bitcoin was $16,650 and grew to over $23,000 by the end of the same month. The crypto community has different points of view on reasons for such an increase. Some said that the bearish trend is now over. As for March 15, the price of BTC is $24,660. Time will tell whether the most popular crypto will drop soon or grow further.

World economic forum in Davos

The world economic forum took place in Davos, Switzerland from 16 to the 20 of January. Crypto was one of the main topics discussed there. A panel of experts talked about how the metaverse could deliver practical utility for the large-scale industries like healthcare or retail. The WEF has an initiative “defining and building the metaverse” with over 120 participants. Also, the experts highlighted the importance of education in the sphere of blockchain. To learn about other points raised on the forum, move to this Blog post.

Bitcoin and El Salvador

BTC was featured on a runaway of the Miss Universe contest. Miss El Salvador, Alejandra Guajardo, surprised everyone with her Bitcoin-inspired gold bodysuit. El Salvador has been a very crypto-friendly state, as in 2021 it recognized BTC as a legal tender and in 2022, their president announced that they will buy one BTC on a daily basis. Also, El Salvador is planning to open the Bitcoin embassy in the U.S. The embassy will collaborate with Texas on initiatives on promoting the BTC adoption.

Crypto regulation updates

A lot of winter news concerns crypto regulation. The UK Treasury has published a crypto framework paper. The 80-page document covers such topics as NFTs, stablecoins etc. The framework is dedicated to facilitate the growth of crypto.

Hong Kong brought more clarity to its future crypto recensing regime. It’s going to announce the new licensing system for exchanges working within the territory of Hong Kong. We have already discussed the crypto regulation in this city.

This was a short digest of the key winter updates. SimpleSwap is following the news of the Crypto World to deliver it to you. Stay tuned with our Blog — many exciting articles are coming soon!

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