BTC breaking through, a growing popularity of Decentralized Finance (DeFi), an adoption of cryptocurrency by institutional investors and large companies. What else was special about 2020? Let’s take a look back.
Of course, the main event in the crypto industry over the past year was the unprecedented growth of Bitcoin price. At the end of the year, BTC began to break its own historical records one after another. At the moment of us writing this, its value exceeds $33,000, and it looks like it’s not going to stop there. For the record, the historical high for BTC was $19,850 back in 2017. Now its growth cycle is much more stable since it is determined by the participation of institutional investors. Among them, MicroStrategy was the most eager, buying a total of $900 million worth of Bitcoin in August and September. We can say that MicroStrategy was mostly responsible for both the growth and popularization of BTC.
The Bitcoin halving was another major event of 2020. It took place on May 11 at the point of adding block №630,000 and reduced the reward per block to 6.5 BTC. By the way, this benchmark was relatively quiet and peaceful, without significant hashrate spikes, as many expected.
Let’s move on and take a look at Decentralized Finance. Although DeFi’s main peak has passed, the amount of money blocked in the protocols continues to grow, with more than $17 billion now invested in them, according to DeFiPulse (for reference, it was only $660 million or even less at the beginning of 2020). Decentralized platforms for credits, loans, trading, insurance, and other financial services are blooming like never before. They also offer opportunities to make money on the liquidity supply.
In May, Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram messenger, announced that Telegram is shutting down the TON project due to never-ending opposition from the US SEC. Durov suggested that the situation may change in the future, but for now, technological and financial projects are very much dependent on the position of the United States.
PayPal has rolled out a feature of buying and selling Bitcoin and other coins for 300 million of its American users. This is a huge step towards the adoption of cryptocurrencies, which already resulted in a huge increase in the number of transactions.
Looking back, we can say that the COVID-19 pandemic, which negatively affected almost all areas of life and the economy, has had a positive impact on the crypto industry. And it is hardly surprising since with inflation and political problems, people are looking for a place to keep their assets outside the reach of banks or the government. And sooner or later, they discover cryptocurrency as a decentralized and anonymous way to manage personal finances. A way that is available to absolutely everyone who has access to the Internet.
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