Original author: Huohuo
The entire crypto industry will see ups and downs in 2023. The Silicon Valley Bank crisis at the beginning of the year caused the market that had just been heavily affected by FTX to continue to fluctuate. Then various regulatory storms began to usher in, and everyone in the industry giants was in danger.
However, danger and opportunity always come together. As the Bitcoin halving approaches, the expectation of the adoption of the Bitcoin spot ETF, coupled with the rise of the BRC 20 narrative, has triggered a craze for inscriptions on various public chains. The superposition of various narratives has brought about a surge in market enthusiasm at the end of the year. Bitcoin once exceeded 45,000 The U.S. dollar has an annual increase of more than 150%, and the market has entered the early stages of a bull market.
So among these treacherous waves, who are the influential figures? The direction of the entire market in 2024 still depends on them?
Retreat bravely from the rapids——CZ
On November 23, 2023, CZ announced his resignation as BN CEO, stating that he would not hold executive positions, but would still retain a majority stake in Binance, and also stated that he would step back behind the scenes and become an investor. As soon as the news came out, it shocked the entire industry.
Why did CZ suddenly resign? The reason is that on November 22, 2023, BN and its CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) pleaded guilty to US federal charges. BN was charged with three counts, including anti-money laundering, operating an unlicensed remittance business, and violating U.S. sanctions. For subsequent development, BN reached a settlement with the SEC at the cost of a huge fine of US$4.368 billion, allowing it to continue operating, while CZ Resign.
In fact, this lawsuit has been going on for five years. As early as 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice began investigating BN for suspected unlicensed remittances, money laundering, and violation of U.S. sanctions, but it was finally settled this year.
However, looking back, BN has grown from a small transparent company founded in 2017 to todays industry leader. In the past six years, CZ has contributed a lot. It can be said that it has built a diversified business system for the industry from scratch, including spot, futures, and options. , mining pools, cloud services, public chains and other fields. At the same time, it has developed the original single CEX into a comprehensive Web3 group and spread its products, services and brand influence to the world.
In the past 6 years, under the leadership of CZ, BN has achieved leading positions in trading platforms, public chains, wallets, investments and other fields. But as BN becomes an industry giant, CZ may have realized that as an industry leader, the biggest challenge at this time may no longer be competition, but to assume the responsibility of leading the encryption industry toward compliance.
Therefore, after CZ left office, some people said that he was burning his ego for light and illuminating the path of compliance innovation for latecomers, and even paving the way for the advancing ETF.
A slap in the face - SEC Chairman
Since taking over as SEC chairman, and especially in 2023, Gary Gensler has launched a rigorous crackdown on crypto regulation, which has also put him in the spotlight in the crypto space. Most notably, he led the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple, which resulted in multi-million dollar fines against crypto trading platforms such as Kraken. This has triggered a wave of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) throughout the crypto industry, causing concern among other top platforms as well.
Speaking of his crackdown on encryption, what made him instantly famous was the SEC lawsuit he led against the digital payment protocol Ripple in December 2020. In the name of protecting consumers, this case severely cracked down on the staking services of encryption platforms and attempted to turn all Tokens into securities.
The recent victory in the prosecution of CZ and BN is another regulatory milestone won by the SEC under Gensler. In addition to these two encryption lawsuits, according to incomplete statistics, there are other encryption cases designed by the SEC:
1) Bittrex and its former CEO were accused of operating unregistered exchanges, brokers and clearing agencies.
2) Fined two people involved in Ormeus Coin fraud for more than $23 million.
3) Tron founder Justin Sun and his company were accused of illegally selling unregistered securities, fraud and market manipulation.
4) Terraform Labs and Do Kwon are accused of orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud.
5) Trade Coin Club was accused of running a $295 million crypto Ponzi scheme.
6) The SEC filed a lawsuit against Dragonchain, alleging unregistered crypto-asset securities offerings.
7) The SEC charged 11 people suspected of creating and promoting Forsage, a $300 million fraudulent Ponzi scheme.
8) The U.S. Second Circuit Court orders Terraform Labs and Do Kwon to comply with the SEC subpoena.
9) The SEC urgently halted the Token distribution of Telegram’s cryptocurrency project TON, saying it was suspected of selling unregistered securities.
10) The SEC filed charges against Block.one and settled by paying a civil penalty of $24 million, involving the issuance of the unregistered digital token EOS.
In short, it can be said that as the encryption world develops and grows, the SEC’s regulatory hammer under Gensler follows closely.。
Bear Market Pillar – Vitalik Buterin
Ethereum has also entered its tenth year since its creation in 2014. Under the leadership of Vitalik, Ethereum has made breakthrough contributions to the development of encryption, from an initial platform that can only support digital assets to one that can It supports various decentralized applications and is known as the World Computer. If Satoshi Nakamoto is the creator of the blockchain, thenVitalik ButerinHe is another key crypto leader in the blockchain.
Vitalik determined the earliest Ethereum roadmap: PoW to PoS (Phase 0) → Data sharding (Phase 1) → Execution sharding (Phase 2). Subsequently, it was continuously revised and debugged during the development process, and expanded to the Ethereum roadmap centered on Rollup: The Merge, The Surge, The Scourge, The Verge, The Purge and The Splurge.
Even though the overall development of Ethereum in 2023 is relatively flat, the most important one is the Shanghai upgrade completed in April, and the resulting rise of the staking track after the upgrade is completed.
Under the unsatisfactory market conditions in 2022, only Ethereum layer 2 experienced an explosive growth stage at the end of the year and became the main attraction that continued into the first half of 2023, especially the leading development of the leader Arbitrum. According to data from L 2 eat, the total value locked (TVL) of Layer 2 currently reaches 20.1 billion US dollars (as shown in the figure below), leaving room for development for Builders in this stage of the bear market.
Vitalik is more optimistic about Rollup, so it will be developed in combination with privacy protection and zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) technology. Although the current Layer 2 ecosystem is still dominated by OP-Rollup, with the advancement of zero-knowledge proof technology, ZK Rollup is likely to become the final Layer 2 solution.
In addition, I have to mention the next upgrade of Ethereum - the Cancun upgrade. It has been revealed that if there are no unexpected circumstances, the test will be officially launched on January 17, 2024. If successful, this will significantly increase the Ethereum network. The transaction volume per second will also open a new stage of development of Ethereums data storage and retrieval capabilities, further paving the way for the development of Ethereum Layer 2.
The founder of the inscription craze—the founder of Ordinals
The recent carnival in the inscription market has exceeded many peoples expectations, and the founder of this event needs to be traced back to Casey Rodarmor, the founder of Ordinals.
Rodarmor has been engaged in technical work since 2010. He has worked at Google and Chaincode Labs, and has also done related work for the main code implementation of the Bitcoin core protocol. Last year, he also served as co-host of Bitcoin BitDevs in San Francisco. Bitcoin BitDevs started in New York City as a community that holds monthly meetups to discuss some of the more technical aspects of Bitcoin. Bitcoin BitDevs is an important part of Bitcoins grassroots culture. .
At the beginning of this year, the Ordinal protocol developed by Rodarmor enabled Ordinal NFT and inscriptions to be implemented on Bitcoin. This is Bitcoins second attempt at NFT on Bitcoin since the emergence of colored coins in 2012 and the derivative Counterparty in 2014.
The Ordinal protocol outlines a method for sequentially numbering Satoshis (the smallest unit of Bitcoin, representing one hundred millionth of a Bitcoin). Once the serial numbers of Sats are obtained, users can burn data onto these Sats to create digital artifacts, which was the original description of Rodarmor relative to NFTs. As of December 27, 2023, the cumulative cost of Ordinals inscription casting reached 5028 BTC.
Source: dune.com
Rodarmor said Ordinals was inspired by Bitcoins pseudonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto. Satoshi Nakamoto mentioned something called atoms in the original Bitcoin codebase.
Rodarmor is currently working full-time on Ordinals. In September this year, Rodarmor proposed a new Bitcoin FT protocol design concept called Rune, also known as the Rune protocol, but it is not yet online.
However, regardless of the subsequent development of runes, the Ordinals proposed by Rodarmor inspired the development of BRC 20 Token. In addition to starting the inscription craze, it also triggered the further development of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
The financial giant waiting to open the floodgates—BlackRock CEO
BlackRock applied for a spot Bitcoin ETF on June 15, 2023. This news caused a sensation in the encryption industry. The SEC has rejected dozens of applications for similar funds over the past decade, but why is BlackRocks application causing such a stir in the industry?
On the one hand, the SEC has previously rejected applications for spot Bitcoin ETFs, citing concerns about fraud and market manipulation and wanting to protect investors, including previous incidents such as the collapse of FTX, which led to further tightening of regulations on cryptocurrency companies this year.
As the worlds largest asset management company, BlackRock in particular manages assets that are about 10 times the market capitalization of the entire cryptocurrency industry. If the ETF application is successfully approved, its large amount of funds will have an impact on the cryptocurrency industry. It will have a major impact and drive up the price of crypto assets. If the application is approved, it may trigger the next round of bull market.
On the other hand, BlackRocks move encouraged eight financial companies including Fidelity, Invesco, VanEck, Cathie Woods Ark Investment Management, and WisdomTree to follow suit. These companies all submitted corresponding applications, which greatly promoted the development of Bitcoin ETFs.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink also has a long history with Bitcoin. As early as 2017, Fink said he was a true believer in cryptocurrency but was concerned about market speculation at the time. On July 16, 2018, he stated that BlackRock clients were not interested in cryptocurrencies and slowed down BlackRock’s propensity to invest in the field. In 2019, as the market improved, BlackRock hired Robbie Mitchnick, Ripples former marketing director, and began to continue exploring the feasibility of cryptocurrency. In 2020, attitudes towards cryptocurrencies began to change, believing that cryptocurrencies will be necessary to exist and may replace gold. In 2021, Fink said he was studying Bitcoin again but had not yet made a firm conclusion. In 2023, BlackRock submitted an application for a Bitcoin ETF, and Fink said the cryptocurrency is expected to surpass global currencies.
Life imprisonment – SBF
In November 2023, on the first anniversary of the FTX thunderstorm, its founder SBF was found guilty of seven charges, including fraud, money laundering, etc. The prosecutor called this one of the largest financial fraud cases in U.S. history.
Why did it happen?
SBF, formerly known as Sam Bankman-Fried, is the co-founder and former CEO (CEO) of the bankrupt CEX FTX and the encryption company Alameda Research. FTX rose in the bull market in 2020. It has become the third largest CEX in the world, attracting the favor of more than one million users and many well-known investment institutions, with its peak valuation reaching US$32 billion.
In November 2022, CoinDesk disclosed a financial document, revealing potential debt problems between FTX and Alameda Research. This information caused panic among users and led to a run on funds. Within a few days, FTX Group declared bankruptcy and SBF resigned. . In 2021, at the age of 28, SBF was already on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, but in just two years, his real-time net worth is now $0.
After FTX went bankrupt, more than $370 million in assets were stolen, triggering an investigation by U.S. prosecutors. In response to the chaos, FTX enlisted the help of former regulatory officials, but the companys collapse raised questions about regulation. In court documents, FTX revealed that more than $2 billion was transferred to SBF. FTX accused SBF and other former executives of embezzling US$1 billion in company funds. The trial involved 20 witnesses, including the former CEO, SBFs ex-girlfriend and other executives.
The trial in this case began in early October 2023 and lasted for one month. The sentencing date is set for March 28, 2024. If SBF is sentenced to the maximum penalty for all counts by then, he will face 115 years in prison.
However, according to related news on December 30, 2023, the US government dropped six charges against SBF, including charges of campaign finance violations and conspiracy to commit bribery, which means that SBF will not need to face a second trial.
Meme leader - Musk
Musk’s relationship with encryption is most famous for his story with Dogecoin, but Musk’s relationship with encryption has a long history. As early as 2021, Musk’s companies Tesla and SpaceX both purchased large amounts of Bitcoin. currency.
Due to his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022, Musk changed the Twitter logo to a dog head on April 5 this year. This move caused the price of Dogecoin to rise by more than 20% in an instant. Please refer to the articleMusk changed Twitter logo to Dogecoin emoticon, what is his intention?
Then on July 30, Twitter changed its classic blue bird logo to X, but this move was hailed as having a major impact on cryptocurrency. Because in 1999 Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and email payment company, which is now PayPal, becoming one of the worlds earliest and most successful online payment processing companies.
Now Musk is reinventing Twitter into a broader new service called X, likely with the intention of turning the iconic social media app into a payments platform. There is speculation that he will integrate other crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as stablecoins such as USDC and especially Dogecoin, a favorite among billionaires.
Therefore, Musk is likely to continue to bring big changes to the encryption industry.
Move forward under pressure - Coinbase CEO
With CZ leaving BN and SBF in jail, Brian Armstrong is the biggest name still in trouble. Brian Armstrong is the co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, and he also has considerable influence on the encryption industry.
First, Coinbase launched its own Layer 2 blockchain Base and derivatives exchange Blade this year, and is expected to launch a Bitcoin ETF in 2024. This is undoubtedly an active preparation for the next wave of the crypto market.
At the same time, like BN, Coinbase also faces regulatory challenges and has been accused of illegal trading. Previously, the SEC regarded all Tokens as securities, which had an impact on the entire cryptocurrency industry. And Armstrong also moved forward vigorously, likening Coinbase to the local sheriff and calling for action to solve the regulatory problems of US agency leaders. Armstrong once posted on social media platform The hard thing to do is the right decision.”
In fact, as early as January of the year, Coinbase acquired FairX, a derivatives exchange regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). This acquisition is a key step for Coinbase to provide crypto derivatives to U.S. retail and institutional customers. He also founded the Stand With Crypto organization, hoping to protect the industry from government criticism.
From a macro level, as BN has received regulatory suppression and another competitor Kraken has also been subject to similar accusations, it has been a positive factor for Coinbases individual development, causing Coinbases price to rise by 200% this year, and its market value to exceed US$25 billion. However, the development of Coinbase has not entered a smooth road from now on. What it has to face next is the poor development of the overall encryption market. Although some settlement agreements have solved some major problems in encryption this year, greater efforts are still needed to boost the overall market. catalyst.
At present, the next important catalyst is the possibility of regulatory approval of a Bitcoin ETF. As mentioned above, BlackRock announced its application to launch a Bitcoin ETF, which happens to be hosted by Coinbase. There is hope for the ETF to be approved. It has promoted the rise of Bitcoin and Coinbase, and it is worth paying attention to the specific subsequent development.
AI Cheating——OpenAI CEO
Since ChatGPT was released on November 30, 2022, it has quickly become one of the fastest-growing consumer applications in history just two months after its release, with the number of monthly active users reaching 100 million. The CEO of its production company OpenAISam AltmanIt also attracted much attention.
However, in addition to the explosion of ChatGPT at the beginning of the year, last month several researchers sent a letter to the board of directors stating that OpenAI had made a major AI discovery and may threaten humanity, causing the board of directors to remove Altman and cause a stir. .
On November 18, 2023, OpenAI announced through its official website that Sam Altman, the current CEO and known as the Father of ChatGPT, would resign as CEO and leave the board of directors. As soon as the news came out, a large number of employees announced that they would advance and retreat with him. He also chose to resign. The news came suddenly, and then he announced the shocking news that he would join Microsoft with his assistant. However, in another reversal, five days after being fired, Sam Altman once again became the CEO of OpenAI.
Altman said on X that his decisions in the past few days, including choosing to join Microsoft, were all to preserve the OpenAI team and mission. Now that OpenAI has a new board of directors and has gained the support of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Altman looks forward to returning to OpenAI and maintaining an excellent partnership with Microsoft.
Translation: I love OpenAI, and everything I have done over the past few days has been to keep the team and its mission intact. When I decided to join Microsoft last Sunday, it was clear that it was the best choice for me and the team. With a new board of directors and Satyas support, I...
In addition, in July this year, Altman created and launched the Worldcoin project and Token, which aims to address global online identity authentication and income inequality issues. Since most people in the world are currently unable to verify their identity digitally, Worldcoin hopes to build the worlds largest and fair digital identity and currency system to help everyone enter the global financial system. However, the project is currently facing difficulties. Some regulatory pushback.
As one of the directions worthy of attention in the encryption field in 2024, AI has to be mentioned by Sam Altman.
The pie is finally profitable - President of El Salvador
It is reported that as of December 4, 2023, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele stated that according to the current market price of Bitcoin, if sold, not only can 100% of the investment be recovered, but also a profit of more than US$3.6 million can be obtained. And all this is inseparable from the promotion of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.
As a small Central American country, El Salvador does not have its own legal currency and chooses to use the U.S. dollar. This has had some impact on the economy. People working outside need to pay expensive remittance fees, which is not conducive to increasing GDP. About 70% of people in El Salvador do not have bank accounts or credit cards. In addition, for the government, the economy is stable but there is constant turmoil. Not a good situation, and in order to repair the economy to some extent, El Salvador needs to attract new financial investors.
External factors aside, Bukele is also a true Bitcoin enthusiast. Therefore, driven by Bukele, on June 9, 2021, El Salvador voted with an absolute majority in favor of officially passing the bill, making Bitcoin a legal tender in the country. El Salvador became the first country to declare Bitcoin as a legal tender. nation. The decision attracted widespread attention around the world. Since the implementation of this policy, El Salvador has begun to actively promote digital payments and financial inclusion, hoping to provide residents with wider financial services and convenience through the adoption of Bitcoin. In addition, according to sources, since the policy was announced, the country will Buy one Bitcoin.
In addition, this move is regarded as an innovative attempt to the financial system and may affect the legal monetary policy choices of other countries in the future. Over time, El Salvador’s relationship with Bitcoin will become an important example of global digital currency experimentation.
Additional 1 True Believer - Michael Saylor
Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, is a Bitcoin whale and an influential figure in the cryptocurrency field. Said to reach a net worth of $3 billion in 2023, his total Bitcoin holdings exceed 120,000, making a significant contribution to reaching his target net worth.
Michael Saylor started investing in Bitcoin in 2020. He purchased a large amount of Bitcoin in his own name at MicroStrategy and invested company funds in Bitcoin. In the months since, Saylor doubled and even tripled his bets on Bitcoin, borrowing more than $2 billion in debt to buy more of the volatile cryptocurrency, and has been Bitcoin ever since. A big fan of coins.
With companies such as FTX, Three Arrows Capital, Celsius and others going bankrupt, last year was undoubtedly a year for crypto investors to grit their teeth and hold on. However, even at the trough of the cycle of Bitcoin, it still received support from Saylor. On November 13 this year, Saylor looked forward to the future of Bitcoin at the 2023 Australian Cryptocurrency Conference. He emphasized the upcoming Bitcoin halving event in 2024 and predicted that this is the stage when Bitcoin will enter the adolescent stage and become a mainstream asset. It is expected that large technology companies and banks will widely adopt Bitcoin between 2024 and 2028. and integrate them into their respective products and services.
Attachment 2: Just buy the pie and be done with it - Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad
According to the latest news on December 11, Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, posted on the X platform that the US government is stealing wealth through peoples money, and it is not too late to realize this. The banking system is bankrupt, act while you can still buy gold, silver and Bitcoin. Robert Kiyosaki also said that many of his warnings have come true. The next warning target is SP, which will hit millions of 401k and individual retirement accounts.
Translation: Want to thank Smart Silver Stacker for, since 2010, he has been laughing at my suggestion that people buy and store silver. Its not easy to warn people like Paul Revere or Chicken Little that the US government is stealing our wealth through our currency. But you can laugh for as long as you want. Its not too late, our banking system is bankrupt. Buy gold, silver, and Bitcoin while you still have the chance. Then your friends and family will laugh at you like I did with the Smart Silver Stacker. By the way, I predicted the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 on Wolfs show, and you can find me on CNNs Wolf Blitzer show. Wolf laughed then. In 2023, I appeared on Fox Business Neil Cavuto show and predicted the collapse of banking giant Credit Suisse, mentioning that UBS could be next. Laugh all you want, a global banking crisis is just around the corner. Remember the warnings in my 1997 book Rich Dad, Poor Dad: Savers are losers and Your home is not an asset. This became true in 2008. People still laugh at those 1997 predictions. Stay tuned for my next warning. The SP is next and will have a serious impact on millions of 401k and IRA accounts. Take care of yourself.
I believe that everyone who is even remotely interested in financial management has read the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. It was published in 1997 and has sold no less than millions of copies and has been translated into more than 50 languages. This makes the book The author of Robert Toru Kiyosaki became a famous figure in finance. His connection with crypto began in 2017, when he began to express interest in Bitcoin, and at that time began to recommend paying attention to and understanding cryptocurrency.
And this month’s call is not the first time Robert has promoted Bitcoin. Robert Kiyosaki also tweeted in 2022 that Bitcoin is almost like a commodity, more like gold, silver or oil. Secondly, the SEC also classifies Bitcoin as a commodity, while other cryptocurrencies are considered securities.
Translation:
Q: Are you investing in Bitcoin? A: Yes, I am investing. Im very excited about Bitcoin. why? Because Bitcoin is classified as a commodity, just like gold, silver, and oil. Most crypto tokens are classified as securities, and SEC regulations would destroy most of them. Im buying more Bitcoin.
He is only publicly expressing his support for crypto assets such as Bitcoin. In addition to stating that he is a Bitcoin investor, he has not disclosed the specific investment amount.
summary
Although 2023 is the trough in the encryption cycle, both encryption speculators and real Builders are pushing the encryption industry forward in their own way.
The influence of these influential figures not only affects the market trend, but also plays a leading or promoting role in the future development of cryptocurrency. No matter how the industry develops, they will undoubtedly be an important part of this historical picture as time goes by.
