Top 5 Events Crypto Space Witnessed in 2024

2024 has been pretty eventful for the cryptocurrency industry with some events being so important that they brought radical changes into the crypto landscape, leaving footprints for years to come. In this article, we will look in detail at five most important, in our view, events that took place throughout the year which will end in less than a week.

We will review those significant events in the crypto space and present them for you in chronological order.

US Government’s Increased Pressure on Binance; CZ’s Imprisonment

By March this year, the US government, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and regulatory bodies increased their crackdown on the Binance exchange, the largest one in the world by trading volume. 

The platform and its former CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ), who stepped down from his position in November last year, were accused of violating anti money-laundering legislation, of serving as an illegal money transmitter, and violating US sanctions against non-US residents who were prohibited to use services provided by Binance in this country. 

Regulators froze some assets belonging to Binance in the US, thus sending big shockwaves across the cryptocurrency market.

The peak of the crisis came in May, when Binance founder and its former chief executive officer CZ agreed to certain terms, which meant he would have to serve a term in a federal prison in the US as part of the plea deal. He started doing it in May and was released only at the end of September. Meanwhile, Binance was already run by a new CEO Richard Teng and under his leadership it worked hard to comply with the US laws. Binance finally implemented strong protocols to prevent money laundering and manage its operations so as to comply with US regulatory demands.

Ethereum’s Dencun Upgrade

The Ethereum upgrade Dencun (comprising two separate ones Cancun and Deneb but implemented together) was rolled out in March this year. This hard fork was focused on adding more scalability to the network and on making it more cost-efficient. To reach these goals, the hard fork introduced proto-danksharding and improved the Layer-2 rollup integration.

That major upgrade was hailed as a big step towards transmitting the whole network to Ethereum 2.0 and an increase in usability and decentralization. Besides, Dencun helped to reduce gas fees on Ethereum, making it more accessible to dapp and NFT builders and users, solidifying Ethereum’s leadership in the world of blockchains for dapps and altcoins.

The Meme Coin Boom

This year also witnessed an unprecedented surge of interest in meme-themed cryptocurrencies as many of them began to attract retail investors who were after quick profits and finally managed to lock in significant gains. The two largest meme coins lead the way in this market – Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB).

Besides, other meme cryptocurrencies, such as PEPE, BONK, WIF, etc, also brought large gains to their buyers. Social media platforms, such as X, Telegram, Reddit, were steaming with speculation and crypto influencers adding the fuel to the fire of excitement about those assets and pushing prices higher and higher.

The overall market capitalization of meme coins spiked to more than $140 billion. Dogecoin alone has roughly one-third of this market – $50 billion, while SHIB boasts $12 billion. While the majority of meme coins remain nothing but digital jokes based on memes, DOGE and SHIB are the only ones that offer utility and their teams continue working on them. In particular, the SHIB team integrated a few hard forks on its layer 2 network Shibarium built on top of Ethereum, and this week they opened early access to the SHIB Metaverse.

However, meme coin prices are strongly correlated with the Bitcoin price and follow its trajectory as it soars or plummets and their surge was largely down to the growth shown by BTC too.

Also, the meme coin boom produced multiple scam projects that rugpulled their investors.

Donald Trump’s Election Victory

In early November, another key event took place that is likely to reshape the crypto industry in the US as we know it. Pro-crypto presidential candidate and former US president Donald Trump was elected by the majority of voters. Formerly a rigorous Bitcoin critic, Trump has turned into an eager supporter of BTC and altcoins.

During his campaign as a presidential candidate, he underscored Bitcoin’s potential for the future of the US as a global financial leader. He suggested creating a strategic Bitcoin reserve over the next five years and even hinted that BTC could help the US pay or at least significantly reduce its multi-trillion national debt.

Bitcoin Peaks at New All-Time High above $108,000

In December, Bitcoin broke through several new all-time highs, the latest of which was $108,268 on December 17. That rally was fueled by several drivers, which included increased purchases by financial institutions, particularly by MicroStrategy, and spot Bitcoin ETFs which were approved by the SEC in January 2024 prior to the fourth Bitcoin halving that took place in April.

Besides, the US government started pivoting to a dovish stance as it began to reduce interest rates. However, the latest statement of the Fed Reserve chair Powell had it that in 2025 this policy would no longer be supported. That news pushed Bitcoin down heavily and it is currently trading slightly below $96,000.

 Overall, 2024 has been a year of profound and staggering changes and expansion for crypto space. The crypto community now looks forward to January 2025 when the pro-Bitcoin president Trump enters the Oval Office to see whether he will indeed integrate fair crypto regulation and create a more crypto-friendly environment than Joe Biden.