An all-time high, hacking and hodling year
In another rollercoaster year for crypto, 2024 saw big wins for Bitcoin hodlers, crypto ETF issuers, and memecoin creators, especially when Bitcoin crossed the $100,000 milestone in December.
But all was not rosy. Scams and fraud have cost victims $2.2 billion this year, and a failed celebrity memecoin venture has angered disgruntled investors and their class-action lawyers.
Here are some of crypto's biggest winners and losers of 2024.
Winners – Bitcoin hodlers
Bitcoin crossed the $100,000 psychological milestone on December 5, led by hundreds of pro-crypto candidates winning seats in Congress and hopes for the most pro-crypto US government in history. Bitcoin continued to rally, reaching a high of $108,000 on December 17th, but has since fallen at the end of the year.
As of December 27, CryptoQuant data shows that 87% of Bitcoin holders are still in profit around $96,000.
Most of the Bitcoin supply is now at a profit. Source: CryptoQuant
Michael Sayler's software company, MicroStrategy, is one of the groups that has benefited significantly from the acquisition. According to Saylor's tracker, the company's Bitcoin (BTC) holdings were worth $42 billion as of December 27.
In the year In 2021, El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender and bought about 200 coins. The country has since grown its holdings to 5,942 bitcoins, worth $576 million at current rates.
Many other organizations have followed MicroStrategy's lead and adopted Bitcoin as part of their portfolio.
On December 23, the Japanese investment company Metaplanet accumulated another 620 Bitcoin, increasing its holdings to 1,762, to $ 169 million. Google Finance reported that its share price rose 5 percent following the announcement.
Meanwhile, on Nov. 25, YouTube alternative Rumble confirmed plans to add bitcoin to its balance sheet, with shares rising 12.63 percent to $7.31 shortly after, according to Google Finance.
American crypto ETF issuers
On January 10, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved 19b-4 applications from asset managers for US Spot Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).
According to K33 Research, Bitcoin ETFs surpassed gold funds for the first time on December 16, collectively amassing $129 billion in assets under management (AUM).
Source: Vetle Lund
The picture includes spot Bitcoin ETFs and ETFs that track the performance of Bitcoin using financial derivatives such as futures.
Memecoins
Memecoins was launched in 2015. It saw another significant pump in 2024, making it the best performance of the year.
The market value of memecoin is currently at $104 billion, led by Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) at $45 billion and $12 billion, CoinGecko data shows. Year-to-date, Solana-based Dogwifhat (WIF) meme token is up more than 879 percent. Pepe (PEPE) also rose 1,205 percent.
Solana memecoin launchpad Pump.fun was responsible for the flood of memecoins throughout the year. According to Dune, the platform's total revenue is over $325 million despite 98.6 percent of memecoins not even launching.
Crypto lawyers
Like previous years, 2024 will be marked by crypto litigation and ongoing bankruptcies.
The SEC has been in the middle of a few hundred lawsuits against crypto firms, with its November 22 annual report showing $8.2 billion in financial settlements for the year ending September 30. The number of cases fell 26% to 583 from last year.
Regardless of the outcome, crypto lawyers have always come out on top. According to a Bloomberg Law report from August, law firms working exclusively on Chapter 11 cryptocurrencies reportedly took in a total of $751 million in claims and fees.
This year there were ten law firms defending some decent coin. Source: Bloomberg Law
In the year By 2023, lawyers, accountants, consultants, analysts and other professionals have collected at least $700 million in fees from the bankruptcy of major crypto companies.
Losers – fraud, hacking and exploiting victims
Fraudsters In a blog post on December 19, blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis reported that total losses from fraud, hackers and exploits this year totaled $2.2 billion across 303 incidents.
This represents a 21% increase compared to 2023, which saw a loss of $1.8 billion over 282 events. Three of the most popular events combined accounted for $825 million stolen this year alone.
In May, malicious actors suspected by the FBI stole more than $300 million from Japanese crypto exchange DMM through social engineering on the company's employees, making it the biggest heist of 2024.
Months ago, decentralized finance (DeFi) and gaming platform PlayDeep had $290 million of its PLA tokens leaked by hackers; They later ignored a $1 million reward to get them back.
Rounding out the three is WazirX, one of the largest crypto exchanges in India, which had $235 million stolen from its treasury in June.
Celebrities are jumping on the crypto bandwagon.
In past cycles, some notables have launched crypto projects or launched collections of non-fungible tokens (NFT), and this cycle was no different, with some even facing class action lawsuits against their controversial token launches this year.
Related: Crypto Entrepreneurs: The Top Winners and Losers of 2023
One of the most recent examples, Haley Welch, also known as Hawk Tuah Girl, launched the memecoin Hawk Tuah (HAWK) on December 4th. The token briefly reached a peak market value of $490 million and then quickly dropped to $41.7 million. Allegations of pickpockets and insider wallet-selling continue to this day.
Investors sued several entities involved in the coin's launch on December 19 for promoting and selling unregistered securities offerings.
After a few weeks of radio silence, in a Dec. 20 X post, Welch said she was “cooperating fully” with lawyers.
Bitcoin paper hands and nocoiners
While there were diehard hodlers, there were those who sold out too early or never got in at all.
Germany seized nearly 50,000 bitcoins from movie piracy website Film2k, selling them since July 12, hauling in nearly $2.8 billion at a time when bitcoin was around $57,000—already causing a lot of head-shaking from Bitcoiners.
According to CoinGecko, Germany's 50,000 bitcoins would be worth around $4.7 billion at current prices.
The United States received criticism from crypto industry executives and observers after it shut down the online Silk Road black market on Dec. 2 and shipped 19,800 Bitcoin, worth $1.9 billion.
US government known addresses still hold large amounts of crypto. Source: Spot On Chain
According to Spot On Chain, the US government still holds 183,850 bitcoins worth $17.7 billion at various known addresses.
Crypto criminals
On March 28, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison on seven felony charges.
Many hackers, such as Ilya Lichtenstein, who stole Bitcoin from the crypto exchange Bitfinex in 2016, have faced the pressure of the law.
US regulators received more than $19 billion in lawsuits from crypto companies in 2024, a 78 percent increase from 2023, when only $10.87 billion was paid.
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