The 5 Biggest Crypto News Stories Since 2021
As a financial news writer, I picked the perfect time to take on a crypto news beat. In April 2021, deflationary cryptocurrencies surged and near-zero interest rates opened the floodgates for speculative investment. Many heard about crypto and the blockchain for the first time. As I built my pace, the crypto market cap increased to nearly $3 trillion in value. And the next year it all fell apart.
Over the past two years, the crypto industry has experienced the good, the bad, and everything in between. It has also changed dramatically.
Wall Street now cares about digital currencies, and so do regulators. Crypto is a place of controversy, due to the many mysteries and scams that have happened in just 24 months.
As crypto winter draws to a close, let’s dive into some of the biggest crypto news from the past two years.
No. 1: Dogecoin Surge Creates Meme Coin Mania
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The crypto market would not be the same without it Dogecoin (DOGE USD). DOGE brought crypto to thousands, if not millions, of people. It also turned some lucky investors into millionaires along the way.
In the first weeks of April 2021, Dogecoin experienced a breakneck increase from 5 cents to 74 cents in just a few days. This event inflated DOGE’s market value from $500 million to nearly $40 billion.
DOGE’s improbable gains fueled some of the most feverish crypto-pumping, and the rise served as inspiration for both well-intentioned tokens and rug-pull schemes. This increase was largely driven by Elon Musk and a quantity other celebrities. Dogecoin also received lots of love from brands as Slender Jim and Newegg (NASDAQ:NEG), with companies minting non-fungible tokens (NFT) and hosting campaigns with Dogetema.
While many have tried to stoke the fire since then, Dogecoin has never regained its all-time high. However, its impact on the crypto industry has changed the game permanently.
No. 2: Shiba Inu gets a Robinhood listing
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Shiba Inu (SHIB-USD) can safely say that it predates the Dogecoin frenzy, first launched in September 2020. Without DOGE, however, SHIB would never have reached its own heights, culminating in its Robin Hood (NASDAQ:HOOD) entry.
Next to DOGE in April 2021, the SHIB crypto gained more than 2000%. Since it was still trading well below 1 cent, many investors were drawn to it in anticipation of another Dogecoin-like run. And unlike many of the other dog-themed DOGE clones, the Shiba Inu came with robust plans. The developers implemented complementary tokens, planned one layer-2 network and launched a metaverse.
Its biggest achievement was its listing on Robinhood. Investors had begged the trading app to adopt SHIB, given Robinhood’s accessibility to retail traders. With many Shiba Inu fans believing that such a listing could catalyze the next bull run for the token, a petition was received to list it on the app hundreds of thousands of signatures.
Ultimately, this community-based effort paid off, with Robinhood list the token in April 2022. Unfortunately for the community of die-hard SHIB fans, it didn’t generate huge gains as many expected, especially since the entry came so long after SHIB was at its peak popularity. Nevertheless, it provides an interesting story about how individual investors can mobilize and influence the market.
No. 3: FTX Collapse Makes Crypto’s Enron History
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The crypto story that had the biggest impact on the investment world was the collapse of FTX.
Led by Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto exchange ran through the 2022 crypto winter on a high note. But the good times ended unceremoniously, with the company embroiled in conspiracy and the founder facing a potential century in prison.
Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire seemed unstoppable. When crypto companies went bankrupt left and right, FTX funded rescue operations and acquisitions. It boasted of having billions of cash on hand. It turned out Binance in a auction to buy Voyager Digital assets. And then, just over a month later, a CoinDesk report led to a bank run that led to FTX going bankrupt. It turns out that FTX commingled its funds with its sister company Alameda Research and lie about the balance.
Bankman-Fried’s fortunes soured even more in the following months when he was arrested and placed in FBI custody. He faces up to 115 years in prison for the company’s dealings, and his business partners are working with authorities to determine his guilt. Most importantly, the FTX story has ruined investors’ relationships with crypto exchanges and managers.
As the second largest crypto exchange in the world, if investors can’t trust FTX, what exchange can they? It’s a question that companies will wrestle with for years to come as the industry reckons with the fallout.
No. 4: FBI targets crypto queen Ruja Ignatova
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Let’s not forget that Sam Bankman-Fried did not invent crypto-crime. The market was far from squeaky clean before FTX’s fall. One story here stands out in particular: The ‘Crypto Queen’s’ disappearance landed a crypto criminal on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for the first time ever.
Ruja Ignatova’s story begins long before I started writing about the crypto industry. Ignatova began her journey to notoriety in 2017. The project she founded in 2014, OneCoin, was to be the next Bitcoin (BTC-USD). Instead, Ignatova took the money she accumulated from clients over three years and effectively dropped off the face of the earth. These assets totaled approximately $4 billion.
Lawmakers have tried in vain to locate Ignatova, and she has been charged in absentia for crimes related to her Ponzi scheme. If ever found, the crypto queen could face decades in prison. In 2022, investigators upped the ante and offered a $100,000 reward for information related to Ignatova’s disappearance. They too gave her a seat on the FBI’s top 10 most wanted list.
In 2023, she has shown signs of life, list her property in London in January. The saga continues to leave investigators scratching their heads, and it has been immortalized in the form of a true crime documentary series.
No. 5: Texas Power Grid shuts down crypto miners
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The cryptomining migration between late 2021 and 2022 was caused by increasing scrutiny of the practice. Legislators and concerned citizens alike had stared wide-eyed at charts that covered energy use for miners and the barns are filled with thousands of mining computers, operating 24/7. All over the world, nations began to crack down on the practice. Several US states have too cut ties with miners.
This has opened doors for Texas in its bid to become the crypto mining capital of the world. But miners learned the hard way that the Lonestar State may not be the land of dreams.
Governor Greg Abbott has introduced tax incentives and given North Texas land to crypto miners. In doing so, Abbott and other Texas lawmakers are looking to become a new Silicon Valley for the crypto industry. However, gambling is dependent on two major assumptions. The first is that the crypto industry not only lasts, but remains profitable. The second is that the state’s independent energy network can support the practice. Already this second assumption has been challenged, and it presents a wakes up miners flee to a supposed land of milk and honey.
The heat wave that swept through the state in the summer of 2022 challenged the Texas energy grid. It was so significant that, fearing death at the hands of the brutal heat, Texas miners were forced to cease operations. Had the government not taken action, crypto mining would likely have caused the second grid failure in 2022.
Now this precedent will eat away at profits and keep miners constantly on guard against future stoppages. Gambling on crypto is arguably one of the riskiest of governments.
At the date of publication, Brenden Rearick did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
