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OVERVIEW

From Xmas Miracles to New Year’s Hangovers: Bitcoin’s Holiday Whiplash 🛷 

source: giphy

Hope you had a Merry Christmas! Today’s Litepaper is chalk full of some facts and data that will make your bathroom breaks away from family that much more fun. 🚽 

BITCOIN
December 25 to The End of January Performance 🫧 

Alright, let’s level with each other: this whole “holiday Bitcoin performance” thing has more mood swings than your cousin after three eggnogs.

But since we’re data nerds let’s shine a festive spotlight on this jolly old rollercoaster. We’re talking price hangover data from December 25 until the end of January from 2014 to 2023.

Think of it as the crypto version of “Miracle on 34th Street”…but with way more tears and fewer miracles.

December 25, 2014 → January 31, 2015

• Performance: $319.0 → $218.5 (–31.5%)

• Summary: A –31.5% nosedive, like the worst hangover of your life, but for your wallet.

December 25, 2015 → January 31, 2016

• Performance: $454.0 → $369.8 (–18.5%)

• Summary: A near –20% drop. Maybe this is Bitcoin’s version of a post-holiday cleanse?

December 25, 2016 → January 31, 2017

• Performance: $891.1 → $965.5 (+8.3%)

• Summary: BTC’s mild +8% bump is just enough to stay buzzed but not blacked out.

December 25, 2017 → January 31, 2018

• Performance: $13,833.5 → $10,265.4 (–25.9%)

• Summary: A nasty –26% faceplant. Everybody who FOMO’d into 2017 mania is reevaluating their life choices.

December 25, 2018 → January 31, 2019

• Performance: $3,793.7 → $3,437.2 (–9.4%)

• Summary: Still in the doghouse, sliding another –9%. Not catastrophic, but definitely not fun.

December 25, 2019 → January 31, 2020

• Performance: $7,196.4 → $9,388.0 (+30.5%)

• Summary: A big +30% rocket. Screw your sober resolutions; Bitcoin’s clearly popping bottles.

December 25, 2020 → January 31, 2021

• Performance: $24,689.6 → $34,392.3 (+39.3%)

• Summary: +39% as BTC goes absolutely ballistic, ignoring all New Year’s diets and disclaimers.

December 25, 2021 → January 31, 2022

• Performance: $50,806.1 → $38,409.0 (–24.4%)

• Summary: After the 2021 hype, –24% is one brutal post-party cleanup.

December 25, 2022 → January 31, 2023

• Performance: $16,831.8 → $23,125.1 (+37.3%)

• Summary: A near +37% run. Bitcoin basically flips the bird to all the 2022 gloom and says, “Watch this.”

December 25, 2023 → January 31, 2024

• Performance: $43,578.5 → $42,580.5 (–2.3%)

• Summary: A small drop of about –2%. BTC’s like, “Here’s some sensible socks, maybe next year will be better.”

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NEWS
A Decade Of Crypto News 📆 

News related to crypto was based almost exclusively on Bitcoin between 2009 and 2012. It wasn’t until 2013 – 2014 that news outside Bitcoin’s price moves, and blockchain generally began to see wider focus. 👀

Things picked up in late 2017 after Bitcoin nearly hit $20k. From 2017 on, things began to pick up as institutions and new money began flooding the market. Here are some of the top stories of the past ten years. 

2014: Scandals and Sentences

• Mt. Gox Collapse: The leading Bitcoin exchange lost over 700,000 BTC. Not exactly pocket change.

• Charlie Shrem’s Arrest: He got two years for money-laundering charges. Crypto meets the courtroom.

2015: Hacks and Highs

• Bitstamp Hack: Around 19,000 BTC went missing. The phrase “Not your keys, not your coins” started sounding less cliché.

• Nasdaq’s Blockchain Trial: Wall Street decided to tinker with blockchain.

• Ross Ulbricht’s Life Sentence: Silk Road’s mastermind got locked away for good.

• Satoshi Speculations: Craig Wright stepped into the spotlight as a maybe-Satoshi. Many eye-rolls ensued.

2016: Ethereum and Halving

• Ethereum’s Homestead Launch: A new blockchain challenger appeared.

• Wright’s Bitcoin Claims: He kept insisting he was Satoshi. The internet was unconvinced.

• Bitcoin Halving: It happened. Market reaction was somewhere between “meh” and a shoulder shrug.

2017: ETF Rejections and Record Highs

• Winklevoss ETF Rebuff: The SEC said no. Bitcoin didn’t care.

• All-Time Highs: BTC laughed in the face of rejection and soared past $10k.

2018: The Year of Losses

• Bitconnect’s Closure: The infamous lending platform imploded. BCC token tanked 87%. Shocker.

• Crypto Job Cuts: Bear market blues led to pink slips.

• ICO Washouts: Regulators woke up and a bunch of new tokens went quietly into the night.

• Bitcoin Cash Forks: “Peaceful separation” was not how this went down.

2019: Futures, Libra, and Taproot

• Bakkt’s Bitcoin Futures: Institutions tiptoed deeper into crypto waters.

• Facebook’s Libra: The social media giant promised a digital currency. Regulators quickly formed a line.

• Taproot on the Horizon: Bitcoin’s major upgrade teased enhanced privacy and efficiency.

2020: DeFi, PayPal, and Corporate Stacks

• DeFi Boom: “Yield farming” became the new buzzword.

• PayPal Joins In: The payments behemoth decided Bitcoin might not be so scary.

• MicroStrategy’s BTC Play: Michael Saylor turned corporate treasury into a crypto vault.

2021: NFTs, El Salvador, and the China Ban

• NFT Craze: Beeple sold a digital collage for $69 million. Everyone googled “NFT” that day.

• El Salvador’s BTC Move: First country to give Bitcoin legal tender status. The IMF cringed.

• China’s Crypto Crackdown: Miners and exchanges relocated faster than you can say “hash rate.”

• Taproot Activation: Another Bitcoin milestone. Way fewer fireworks than expected.

2022: Turbulence and Transformation

• Crypto Bowl: Major crypto ads dominated the Super Bowl. Who knew digital assets could afford that airtime?

• Ronin Network Hack: Hackers made off with a mountain of funds.

• Terra-LUNA Meltdown: Algorithmic stablecoins went from hot to not.

• Ethereum Merge: The switch to proof-of-stake finally happened.

• FTX Collapse: Sam Bankman-Fried’s empire crumbled in November. Yes, it was messy.

2023: Legal Drama and Potential ETFs

• Celsius CEO’s Arrest: Another lending platform, another CEO in handcuffs.

• SEC’s Loss to Grayscale: Courts scolded the SEC for playing gatekeeper on Bitcoin ETFs.

• SBF’s Guilty Verdict: Turns out, fraud is frowned upon.

• XRP’s Legal Victory: A judge ruled XRP isn’t a security, leaving the SEC a bit deflated.

• Banks Collapse: Silicon Valley Bank and pals imploded, reminding everyone that old-school finance can be messy, too.

• Do Kwon’s Arrest: Terraform Labs’ head got busted.

• NFT Slump: Trading volumes dipped, even with new marketplaces like Blur trying to shake things up.

• Binance Regulatory Woes: CZ stepped down amid a flurry of legal headaches.

• Spot Bitcoin ETFs: The holy grail for institutional investors creeped closer to reality.

2024: ETFs, Sentences, and Six-Figure BTC

• BTC ETF Approvals (Jan 10): The US finally gave the green light on spot Bitcoin ETFs. Took long enough.

• ETH’s Dencun Upgrade (Mar 13): Another Ethereum update. Ether fans pretended to be thrilled, everyone else yawned.

• SBF Gets 25 Years (Mar 28): Fraud apparently doesn’t end in a “Get Out of Jail Free” card, no matter how curly your hair is.

• Bitcoin Halving (April 19): Bitcoin’s third halving happened. People who were expecting a massive feast and celebration were left with a DoorDash delivery missing 80% of what they ordered.

• CZ Sentenced to Four Months (Apr 30): Once the face of a crypto empire, now the face of “four months behind bars.”

• ETH ETFs Approved (May 23): Fresh on the heels of BTC ETFs, Ethereum joined the ETF club. Some folks acted like it was the Second Coming.

• End of the XRP vs SEC Case (Aug 7): After enough drama to fill a reality TV show, XRP and the SEC finally parted ways.

• Trump Reelected (Nov 5): I think the title/headline pretty much let’s you know what happened.

• BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF Overtakes Gold (Nov 8): Because what’s more fun than dethroning a shiny metal that’s been around for centuries?

• Bitcoin Hits $100K (Dec 5): The prophecy fulfilled. X collectively lost its mind.

NEWS
10 Obscure Crypto Facts 🤯 

1. Bulgaria’s government might be sitting on more Bitcoin than Michael Saylor (200k+ BTC seized) ever dreamed of. Great to know a random European state could be an OG whale.

2. Roughly 20% of Bitcoin is forever lost in the purgatory of forgotten passwords. People might brag about diamond hands, but apparently, amnesia is the ultimate hodl strategy.

3. One altcoin project called Dentacoin managed to hit a market cap in the billions. Its mission? Fix dentistry. Because nothing screams ‘to the moon’ like root canals.

4. Tether once printed a casual $1 billion in a single day. No big deal—just conjuring up digital dollars like it’s open mic night at the Fed.

5. A single NFT sold for $69 million at Christie’s. It’s basically digital art you can’t hang on your wall, but hey, that’s a flex, right?

6. Jack Dorsey’s first tweet NFT fetched $2.9 million. Then it tried to sell for $48 million. Spoiler alert: no one wanted it for $48 million.

7. There’s a project called YOYOW, short for “You Own Your Own Words.” Sure, but apparently you don’t own your money if you lose your seed phrase.

8. At least one CryptoPunk changed hands for a suspicious $500+ million. Must have been a rare “Enron Gray” background trait or something.

9. Ether’s initial token sale priced it around 30 cents. Those who picked up ETH for gas money now have Lambos. Well, unless they forgot the password (see fact #2).

10. On average, Bitcoin’s network uses enough electricity to power a small nation. What you might not know is that Bitcoin’s energy usage is greater than that of the entire airline industry and Google’s global operations.

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