Here are the major highlights of the crypto market in 2023. How Bitcoin, Ethereum and major cryptocurrencies performed, India's adoption of crypto and other, major events
The year 2023 witnessed substantial resilience in crypto markets that rose from the fall it took in 2022 but didn’t rise to the 2021 highs. The total crypto market cap rebounded from below $1 trillion in mid-2022 to surpass $1.5 trillion by December 2023.
The year 2023 ended with a notable surge in major crypto currencies. As of December 22, 2023, Bitcoin is showing a 160 per cent surge from its price as of the same date last year. Ethereum and various meme coins also closed the year in green, Dogecoin paralleled Bitcoin in terms of its following in India, and experienced a 20 per cent price surge YTD, reaching $0.0928.
Notably, Solana (SOL), NEAR Protocol (NEAR), Fetch.ai (FET), and storj (STORJ) showed the highest rise surging between 233 per cent and 648 per cent.
Bitcoin made a gradual recovery, starting the year from below $17,000 and closing the year with $43,550.40, with periods of small volatility throughout the year. But crypto’s largest coin by market capitalisation holding over close to 50 per cent market share is far from its 2021 highs when it had crossed $65,000.
Despite geopolitical tensions like Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and other wars, Bitcoin and Ethereum showed relative stability. Ethereum’s Ether [ETH], the second biggest cryptocurrency by market cap also surged by 83.54 per cent.
India showcased significant grassroots crypto adoption, despite the Central government flagging several regulatory developments and legistations. Blockchain analytics platform Chainalysis ranked India in first place as a crypto adoption leader. In its 2023 Global Crypto Adoption Index released in October, India is reported to have received $250 billion in crypto value between July 2022 and June 2023, second only to the United States which received $1 trillion during the same period.
Dogecoin emerged as India's favourite crypto currency, surpassing Bitcoin and Ethereum in investment value. Dogecoin claimed 11.1 per cent of total investment value against Bitcoin’s 8.5 per cent on CoinSwitch, India’s largest crypto trading platform.
The crypto platform FTX’s collapse in November 2022, saw its former CEO billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, convicted on multiple charges related to fraud and money laundering. The year 2023 saw multiple trials on it and Bankman-Fried's sentencing is scheduled for March 2024. Meanwhile FTX debtors and liquidators in December agreed on a global settlement to partially reimburse those who lost crypto assets.
During the year, Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange agreed to pay a whopping $4 billion settlement to the US government for alleged illegal activities.
Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty in a case related to failure to prevent money laundering and stepped down from his position.