Timeline of Crypto Market Events: 2023 Edition

CP Media prepared a retrospective review of the major events happening in the crypto market in 2023. The vast majority of them were covered on CoinsPaid Media’s website, and therefore many of the points contain hyperlinks so that you can find out the details by clicking on them.

January

1. News of a possible recession in 2023 caused an increase in activity in the crypto market. BTC quotes grew by 22% for the week, reaching $21,000. 
2. Genesis Global Capital filed for bankruptcy. Liabilities to clients and creditors reached $10 billion. The restructuring process was launched. 
3. A new concept called Listen-to-Earn (L2E) was created, allowing users to earn BTC for every minute they listen to podcasts and related ads. 
4. FTX’s lawyers released a list of companies owed by the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange. In total, FTX owed 70,000 companies and 9.7 million users. 
5. The Bitcoin network launched the Ordinals protocol, which increased the average commission by 122% and tripled the profitability of BTC mining in a matter of weeks. 

February

1. During the month, seven DeFi protocols were attacked by hackers, resulting in over $21.41 million stolen, which is 30 times more than in January. 
2. The total crypto market cap increased by 25% since the beginning of the year. Investors started voicing confidence in Bitcoin’s prospects, boosting inflows into BTC-based financial instruments. 
3. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Kraken of violating the Securities Act, forcing it to shut down its crypto staking program for U.S. users and pay a $30 million fine.
4. Paxos Trust Company, the issuer of the Binance USD stablecoin, stopped issuing new tokens. Influenced by the FUD effect, users withdrew more than $788 million from Binance accounts in 24 hours.

March

1. The ERC-4337 standard was deployed on the Ethereum network, bringing account abstraction technology that turned a smartphone into a hardware crypto wallet. 
2. Polygon launched Polygon ID, a tech solution that allows users to confirm their identity in the Web3 space without disclosing sensitive information.
3. In the United States, banks SVB, Silvergate, and Signature declared bankruptcy, destabilizing the stablecoin market. While the U.S. banking sector lost over 11% overnight, Bitcoin quotes rose 20%, reaching a high of $26,500 since June 2022. 
4. U.S. regulators questioned the legality of crypto exchanges Coinbase and Binance, accusing them of violating U.S. law. 
5. Assets under management of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) hit a record high of $25.6 billion, doubling since the beginning of the year.
6. Do Kwon, ex-CEO of Terraform Labs, was arrested in Montenegro while trying to cross the border with fake documents. He was sentenced to four months in prison. Two jurisdictions at once — the United States and South Korea — accuse the entrepreneur of crashing the terraUSD and Luna digital tokens. Kwon will remain in custody in Montenegro until February 2024, and then he’ll probably be extradited. It’s not yet known exactly to which country.

April

1. The Bitcoin network implemented a new token standard, BRC-20, which helps “create cryptocurrencies” using the Ordinals protocol, with its users breaking activity records. 
2. Hackers attacked SushiSwap, withdrawing about $3.3 million in ETH from its accounts, and DeFi protocol Yearn.Finance, whose users lost over $11 million in crypto.
3. Bitcoin set a new high in 2023 at $30,133 amid expectations of a Fed inflation report. The crypto market capitalization surged 48.9% since the beginning of the year, with trading volume in the market averaging $77 billion per day.  
4. The Shanghai (Shapella) hard fork was carried out on the Ethereum network, unlocking the possibility of withdrawing staked ETH, which provoked a rise in the asset’s price above $2,100.

May

1. The Bitcoin blockchain network was overloaded due to the hype surrounding the Ordinals protocol. The total number of BRC-20 tokens exceeded 14,000 and their capitalization reached $1 billion. The tokens were integrated into the Lightning Network, Litecoin and Dogecoin. 
2. The European Council unanimously approved a new tax directive (DAC8) that would expand reporting requirements for crypto service providers in the region.
3. Alarmed by the instability of the U.S. economy, issuers of the largest stablecoins began reviewing the collateral structure of their coins. Circle adjusted its treasury reserves, while Tether boosted its BTC reserves in BTC and precious metals.
4. Crypto exchange Bittrex filed for bankruptcy. The company’s liabilities reached $1 billion. However, the organization continued to operate outside the United States. 
5. Bitcoin was named one of the three best assets to protect investors in the event of a U.S. default, on par with gold and Treasury bonds. BTC even became a more preferred asset than fiat currencies.
6. PEPE, a new meme coin, entered the market and its price increased 11 times in the first two weeks after listing. The daily trading volume exceeded $2 billion, and the crypto community called Pepe Coin the next Shiba Inu. The hype around the project grew, but at the end of August, several PEPE developers left the project, withdrawing about 60% of tokens worth $15.7 million. After that, the hype around the project subsided, the trading volume didn’t go above $100 million per day by the end of the year.

June

1. Investment giant BlackRock filed an application with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to create a spot Bitcoin ETF.
2. Trading volume on DEXs increased while declining on CEXs. Trading volume on CEXs fell 37% to $439 billion, while users of the four major DEXs boosted trading volume by $494 million during the week.
3. The SEC pressed official charges against Binance and Changpeng Zhao. The regulator attempted to freeze the crypto exchange’s accounts in the United States but met resistance from the company’s lawyers and reached a settlement agreement. At the same time, official charges were also brought against Coinbase. 
4. Following a court order, the SEC was forced to release internal correspondence that preceded William Hinman’s “landmark” statement that ETH wasn’t a security. The document strengthened Ripple Labs’ position in its standoff with the SEC.

July

1. FedNow instant payment service, called an alternative to the CBDC, was officially launched in the United States. This gave depository institutions in the U.S. an opportunity to expand the list of services they provided.
2. The blockchain network of the Worldcoin project was launched, causing a lot of ethical controversy in the crypto community, including concerns about the project’s centralization, privacy, and data security.
3. Representatives of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX filed a lawsuit against Sam Bankman-Fried, Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, and Nishad Singh. They sought to recover over $1 billion that the former top executives misappropriated. 
4. Ripple Labs won a partial victory against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a lawsuit over the legal status of the XRP token. Specifically, the court ruled that XRP isn’t a security when sold to retail investors.
5. The price of BTC surpassed $30,000 despite the fact that spot trading volume on CEXs and DEXs dropped significantly. Only VR & AR sectors and projects related to AI & Big Data technologies showed growth.

August

1. The total value locked (TVL) in the liquid staking derivatives (LSD) segment of the Ethereum ecosystem exceeded $22 billion. Users block approximately $140 million daily via LSD protocols.
2. As part of the three-week Onchain Summer festival, Coinbase officially launched its Ethereum-based Layer 2 network Base. Over the course of the week, the L2 solution attracted more than 700,000 new users who generated $93 million in trading volume. The Base team signed an agreement with Optimism Collective to jointly manage the protocol.
3. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed an interlocutory appeal in a case over the status of XRP, seeking to overturn the court’s ruling on whether the coin is a security. Ripple’s lawyers insisted that the motion be denied for lack of legal necessity.
4. A launch of the Shibarium mainnet, Shiba Inu’s L2 solution for Ethereum, failed. A bug was discovered in the network’s code, and rumors of its potential impact on the entire network instantly dropped the prices of SHIB, BONE, and LEASH tokens. The cross-chain bridge vulnerability was only fixed with the help of the Polygon team.
5. Marketplace OpenSea announced the shutdown of Operator Filter, a tool for automated royalty collection, which caused a negative reaction from the NFT community and the exit of Yuga Labs from the platform. Against this backdrop, the trading volume on the NFT marketplace Rarible rose by 444% over the day.

September

1. Wary of further centralization of the Ethereum blockchain network, representatives of liquid staking protocols agreed on a 22% self-limit of all blocked ETH. But the community of the Lido Finance protocol, with a market share of around 32%, didn’t support the idea. 
2. In the U.S., investment firms ARK Invest and VanEck filed applications with the SEC to list spot Ethereum ETFs. Meanwhile, local officials began pushing for a Bitcoin ETF, but the SEC again postponed the deadline for a final decision.
3. The performance of Base, Ethereum’s new L2 solution, grew strongly. More than 1.5 million users joined the network within the month, and TVL exceeded $400 million. Base developers launched the Pessimism security monitoring system and Seamless Protocol, a decentralized, non-custodial liquidity marketplace that enables collateral-free lending.
4. The total number of crypto users reached 425 million, with about half of them being BTC holders.  
5. The total trading volume on CEXs fell by 11.5%, while spot and derivatives trading volume dropped by 7.8% and 12.3%, respectively. The net outflow of BTC from crypto exchange accounts amounted to about 30,000 BTC, ten times less than in 2022.

October

1. The total value locked (TVL) of LSD protocols for ETH staking rose by 5,870%, reaching the $919 million mark. But the growing popularity of such protocols intensified the risks of centralization of the Ethereum network, as they lack decentralization.
2. BTC hit $35,000 for the first time in the last 18 months, although the crypto market cap fell by 8.6%, the DeFi sector lost about 13%, and total investment in the sphere went down by 21%. At the same time, the share prices of Amazon, Apple, Meta, Tesla, and Google began to plummet.
3. A class action lawsuit was filed against Binance and Changpeng Zhao, accusing the company and its CEO of unfair competition, attempts at market monopolization, and the collapse of FTX.
4. The SEC’s motion for an interlocutory appeal of the court’s decision in the Ripple Labs case was denied. The regulator also dropped all charges against Ripple Labs executives Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen.
5. The court sessions in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried were held. The ex-CEO of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and Co-Founder of Alameda Research was opposed by his former partners and friends Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, Nishad Singh, Adam Yedidia, and others involved. The defendant continued to deny all of the allegations. As a result, the jury found Sam Bankman-Fried guilty of eight counts of criminal charges, including fraud, conspiracy to launder funds, and defrauding investors and creditors. A final verdict will be handed down in March 2024, Bankman-Fried faces up to 115 years in prison.

November

1. During the month, Tether minted 4 billion new USDT tokens on Ethereum and Tron. The stablecoin’s total supply increased by 22.75 billion tokens in 2023. The company also announced the construction of its own Bitcoin mining hubs in Paraguay, Uruguay, and El Salvador, allocating about $0.5 billion.
2. The U.S. Department of Justice expressed its willingness to close the case against Binance if the company meets several conditions. The cryptocurrency exchange agreed to pay a $4.4 billion fine and stop supporting BUSD-based products, and Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty and resigned as the CEO.
3. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued crypto exchange Kraken, filing a series of charges and designating 11 cryptocurrencies as securities. These include ADA, MATIC, SOL, NEAR, and others.
4. Year-to-date investments in crypto funds rose to $1.14 billion, with about 70% of all BTC in circulation remaining in a HODL position as long-term investors ignore the rising price of Bitcoin and expect a bull market.
5. Moody’s analysts unveiled the Digital Asset Monitor (DAM), an AI-based service that took nearly a year to develop. The AI-based tool can predict the depegging of stablecoins and check the stability of coin issuers in real time.

December

1. The Bitcoin Core developer criticized the Ordinals protocol and BRC-20 tokens, claiming that they were used to launch regulatory DDoS attacks on the Bitcoin network. In response to such accusations, the developer of the NFT collection Taproot Wizards created a script that allows Bitcoin miners to exclude blocks containing digital artifacts.
2. Bitcoin exceeded $41,000. For the first time in the last ten years, BTC was no longer considered “dead.” The total capitalization of the crypto market reached $1.68 trillion, and the market cap of altcoins hit $823 billion. 
3. Hackers stole $484,000 in crypto from users of Ledger hardware device by compromising a former employee of the company and distributing a malicious Ledger Connect Kit. Experts warned that the incident would have negative consequences for the entire EVM ecosystem.
4. Layer 2 (L2) protocol networks for Ethereum were overloaded due to EVM Inscriptions, which are analogs of Bitcoin Ordinals. Avalanche, zkSync, Cronos, and Arbitrum were temporarily suspended. 
5. Circle developers created the Recoverable Wrapper Tokens (RWT) mechanism, which would make Ethereum transactions reversible. The Coinbase team updated its crypto wallet, adding the ability to send cryptocurrencies via a link through social networks, messengers, or email.
6. The activity on the Solana network jumped up sharply. The number of daily active addresses exceeded 980,000. The price of SOL began to skyrocket amid the bull market, breaking through the $100 mark by the end of the year. Over the year, the asset’s quotations grew by over 900%, and investors put $167 million into Solana-based investment products.

These are the key events of 2023 recorded by CP Media. We recommend you to pay attention to the 2024 predictions — the main forecasts on the crypto market and Web3 trends.