According to the 2022 report of the crypto industry by CoinGecko, a painful year has passed.
Crypto data provider CoinGecko has prepared a comprehensive report on the year 2022. In this report, the processes of the crypto industry were examined in detail. Looking at the report, it has been observed that the past year has been difficult for the crypto industry and the cryptocurrency market. Especially FTX and Terra events caused the biggest losses of the year.
2022 Crypto Market Overview
After the difficult second quarter of 2022, the markets were able to breathe a little. The crypto money market, which connected to a horizontal course after the second quarter, moved with a value below 1 trillion dollars.
Challenging global economic conditions and a series of collapses in the crypto money market brought the total crypto sector value below $ 1 trillion. The crypto sector closed the year 2022 with $ 829 billion. This value was 64 percent lower than its value at the beginning of the year.
The second quarter of the year was the most brutal. In this quarter, there were large scale declines and collapse scenarios. In addition, the FTX crisis in November put the markets in a lot of trouble. In the last quarter of 2022, the transaction volume was 59 billion dollars. Compared to the previous quarter, this represents a 32 percent decrease. The average transaction volume of the year was 86 billion dollars. Solana and LUNC lost more than 90 percent in 2022.
2022 Crypto Domination
In 2022, when the bear market weighed in, crypto investors flocked to stablecoins, which they saw as more reliable. Stablecoins such as USDT, USDC and BUSD have increased their market dominance. Bitcoin market dominance remained stable in 2022. However, in previous bear seasons, Bitcoin was increasing its market dominance.
Among the seven largest cryptocurrencies by market cap, only Ethereum’s dominance fell. During this period, there has been a broad rise in the market dominance of USDC and USDT.
Returns of Cryptocurrencies in 2022
Among the largest cryptocurrencies, Cardano (ADA) was the worst-performing cryptocurrency, with an 81 percent drop in the full year. The best performance was provided by BNB with a return of 52 percent. In addition, DeFi projects have lost up to 80 percent over the course of the year.
The Play to Earn (P2E) sector was also among the worst performing sectors of the year. P2E projects were noted overall, with a loss of over 90 percent. As the exception, GMT came out first, gaining 2,700 percent. GMT finished the year with 69 percent gains.
Cryptocurrency Adoption Status in 2022
Over the past year, cryptocurrency adoption has grown steadily. Despite the market dips, the number of BTC and ETH wallet addresses has risen healthily. Also, the number of wallets actively holding BTC remained stable. This marked increased adoption despite the bear market.
The number of active wallets in the Bitcoin network ranged from 800,000 to 1 million. On Ethereum, on the other hand, the number of active addresses has declined throughout the year. At the beginning of the year, the number of active addresses in Ethereum was at the level of 500 thousand, but towards the end of the year it decreased to around 400 thousand.
Hacks and Vulnerabilities in 2022
About $2.8 billion was stolen in the past year due to at least 180 security vulnerabilities. In addition, the five cross-bridge hacks accounted for 65 percent of the total stolen assets. The biggest exploit in the crypto industry took place in 2022. In March, $624 million was lost in the Ronin Bridge hack.
Other major hacking attacks include; BNB Bridge lost $585 million and Wormhole Bridge lost $326 million. Nomad Bridge, Beanstalk, Wintermute, Mango Markets and Harmony Bridge are among the projects that have been abused.
Bitcoin Price and Mining in 2022
The leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC) started 2022 with a level of $ 46,319. However, with the effect of the heavy bear season, Bitcoin finished the year at $ 16,604. With this decrease, BTC experienced a loss of 64 percent.
Bitcoin peaked at $21,282 in the fourth quarter. However, the new process that started with the FTX collapse brought the BTC price down to $ 15,742, making it the lowest level of the year.
On the other hand, the hash rate of the Bitcoin network showed an upward trend despite the tough bear season. However, the difficulties experienced by the miners in November caused a slight decrease.
Despite the declines in the markets, the hash rate of the Bitcoin network increased by 54 percent in 2022. In addition, the hash rate increased by 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter.
Ethereum in 2022
The year 2022 was also a difficult year for Ethereum. Despite the Merge update in the third quarter of 2022, the ETH price closed the year at $1,200.
ETH closed the year 2022 with a 67.5 percent decline. The highest level of the year was $3,835 in January. ETH’s lowest level was also at $995 in June.
Also, the amount of ETH staked has risen steadily due to network upgrades and the Merge update. The total number of ETH staked was 15.8 million at the end of the year. The most ETH staked channel was Lido.
DeFi and NFT in 2022
The Terra and FTX crises experienced in 2022 affected the DeFi industry the most. DeFi’s overall market cap remained resilient throughout the first quarter. But the subsequent collapses wiped billions of dollars from the ecosystem. After the collapse, DeFi tried to recover and finished the year stably.
The increasing interest in ETH and DeFi tokens has given the DeFi industry a bit of life. However, at this point, the FTX crisis emerged and DeFi fell again. DeFi made up 6.5 percent of the crypto industry at the beginning of the year, but this rate dropped to 4.1 percent at the end of the year.
The year 2022 has hit the financial side of NFTs. But NFTs, on the other hand, have been successful in terms of adoption and proliferation. While the decline in transaction volumes made NFTs bleed, powerful names and popular collections entering the industry also drew attention.
With the NFT winter, OpenSea’s transaction volume decreased by close to 65 percent. However, OpenSea is still the market leader.
You can access the 2022 crypto report prepared by CoinGecko here.
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