2022 saw the fall of many linchpin crypto and blockchain firms as the May market drawdown shook the industry. It caused many cryptocurrencies to lose value and many investors to pull their money from the market. Furthermore, the unprecedented knock-on effects of the meltdown exposed many blockchain and cryptocurrency firms that were ill-prepared for turbulent times.
However, a collective of companies was able to resist negative market forces and grow amidst the turbulence. The crypto market as a whole continues to grow and has now reached 320 million users.
As we look back on a year full of surprises, we have compiled just a few of the biggest stories that took the industry by surprise.
Binance and the beast
Binance is currently the world’s largest crypto exchange by trade volume. The company has managed to penetrate major crypto markets in recent years, including the United States with its Binance.US subsidiary. The exchange, which features over 300 cryptocurrencies, is estimated to have facilitated the trading of crypto collectively worth approximately $22 trillion in 2022.
Reaching mass crypto adoption could be down to a number of factors; however @cz_binance believes there’s one key part missing.
Hear it from CZ’s MasterClass ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/HwEJu0y0dQ
— Binance (@binance) December 29, 2022
According to data derived from Similarweb, the platform was consistently getting over 70 million visits a month in the third quarter, which is about double the number achieved by Coinbase, its closest rival.
The crypto exchange made some notable acquisitions in 2022 to boost its geographical coverage. Among them was Sakura Exchange BitCoin, a Japanese crypto trading platform, and Tokocrypto, an Indonesian digital currency brokerage firm.
That said, it has not all been smooth sailing. In December, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, was forced to downplay concerns regarding a sudden increase in user redemptions after $1.9 billion was withdrawn by users from the platform in 24 hours. Zhao stated that external factors were to blame for the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) among a section of users.
FUD heightened after the Mazars proof-of-reserve auditing firm paused its collaboration with Binance and other crypto clients. The unexpected turn of events caused investors to become anxious about keeping their money on the exchange.
Dacoco in the Alien Worlds
Dacoco is the publisher behind Alien Worlds, the highest-ranked gaming metaverse ecosystem in 2022.
The game was able to maintain its position as the most popular GameFi platform in the world in 2022, averaging just over 200,000 unique active wallets daily, according to data derived from DappRadar. This was a worthy surprise considering the stiff competition that Alien Worlds faced. The game had topped the crypto gaming list in 2021, and so retaining its position was an extraordinary feat.
That said, Alien World’s popularity has been boosted by features such as multichain interplay that harnesses the best elements of the WAX, Ethereum, and BNB Smart Chain to improve gaming experiences.
n the #AlienWorlds Missions, Explorers send virtual spaceships on a #AlienWorldsMission to complete tasks throughout #AlienWorldsMetaverse.
On return, Explorers receive a portion from #TLM pool for that respective Mission & a Mission #NFT game card.
https://t.co/iJbnzl2Z5h pic.twitter.com/9QCbkStC8a
— Alien Worlds Official (@AlienWorlds) December 28, 2022
In 2022, Dacoco developers introduced a few innovative concepts to engage users further and enhance democracy in the Alien Worlds ecosystem. Among them were in-game decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). The new feature allowed players to use their Alien Worlds Trilium (TLM) coins, the native in-game governance token, to support and regulate any of the six competing DAOs, dubbed “syndicates.”
That said, the platform experienced a few hair-raising moments earlier in the year when there was a steady decline in transaction volume. At some point in March, when volumes were at their lowest, the platform recorded less than 4 million daily transactions. Alien Worlds has since bounced back, and current numbers exceed 13 million daily transactions.
Alien Worlds is set to face some serious competition from some upcoming blockchain gaming projects such as Meta, Decentraland, and The Sandbox once the games truly go mainstream.
A terraforming collapse
Terraform Labs is the blockchain company behind the Terra Classic (LUNC) and TerraClassicUSD (USTC) tokens. The company is based in Seoul, South Korea, and is headed by Kwon Do-Hyung, commonly known as Do Kwon.
The Terra crypto ecosystem is seen as a catalyst to the crypto market plunge that occurred in May that eventually wiped out over 2 trillion dollars from the market. This is after the USTC algorithmic stablecoin depegged from its dollar value and threw investors into a selling frenzy. Very few…
cointelegraph.com