How 2022 Became the Year of Crypto Carnage 😵

In today's edition: A review of 2022, Ellison’s guilty plea details, numerous hacks, and more!

December 27, 2022

New Pod Today!

This episode of Unchained looks back on a tumultuous year for the cryptocurrency industry in 2022. Significant events such as the bankruptcies of FTX, Three Arrows Capital, Celsius, Voyager, BlockFi, and the collapse of Terra/LUNA, led to billions being lost due to market plunges and also due to numerous hacks. 

This year also brought the Ethereum Merge, one of the most awaited events in crypto's short history. Amidst the turmoil, true believers like Chris Burniske saw a silver lining, while the crypto community watched for the further fallout of this year’s crypto contagion to play out. 

What’s Poppin’?

Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison confessed that she and former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried provided misleading financial statements to Alameda’s lenders.

DeFi protocol Defrost Finance said that a hacker involved in a $12 million exploit last week has now returned the stolen funds, but its audit firm Certik claims that the project attempted an exit scam.

Hackers are attempting to cash out after exploiting popular crypto wallet BitKeep over the weekend.

Prominent Bitcoin mining pool BTC.com reported losing $3 million worth of digital assets in a cyber-attack carried out earlier this month.

Matt Luongo and Maclane Wilkison, cofounders of Threshold, discuss everything about tBTC and Bitcoin bridges.

In Other News…✍️✍️✍️

  • Solana’s NFT projects DeGods and Y00ts will migrate to Ethereum and Polygon respectively.

  • Crypto lender Nexo (disclosure: a former sponsor) denied reports that the deal to acquire Singapore-based crypto lender Vauld was terminated and said it "has not given up."

  • A powerful winter storm in North America caused some Bitcoin miners to power down their operations, resulting in a 40% drop in the Bitcoin network's computing power over the weekend.

  • Researchers discovered a North Korea-linked phishing campaign targeting NFT users on platforms like OpenSea, X2Y2, and Rarible.

Today in Crypto Adoption...

  • Giant investment firm Fidelity filed three trademark applications in the US related to providing services in the metaverse as part of its push into digital assets.

What Do You Meme

📈 Your Market Update 📉

  • BTC is down .2%, trading at $16,866

  • ETH is down .45%, trading at $1,221

  • BTC dominance: 38.63%

  • Crypto market cap: $840 billion

*All data as of today, 5 am ET

Recommended Reads

  1. “In the Bahamas, a Lingering Sympathy for Sam Bankman-Fried” by NYT’s Rob Copeland

  2. James Prestwich on MEV

  3. “These Crypto Founders And Bitcoin Moguls Lost $116 Billion In 2022” by John Hyatt from Forbes.

⛓️ Join Unchained Premium to get access to:

  • Behind-the-scenes interviews, in which I talk with crypto experts and entrepreneurs to learn all about the latest developments in the industry.

  • A subscriber-only Telegram group, where you can talk with the other members of the Unchained community, build a network in crypto, and talk directly with me and the Unchained team!

  • And now, a new offering: transcripts of all the shows, for subscribers only.

If you liked what you read: