2020 was an eventful year for the crypto world. Below, Trijo News has gathered the five most important events of the year.
Price record and institutional interest
On January 2, 2020, it was reported that Tendayi Kapfidze, chief economist at the finance company Lending Tree, believed that the actual value of bitcoin is zero.
“It’s a pyramid scheme. You only make money based on people who enter after you”, he said, among other things, to Yahoo Finance.
Twelve months later, the question is whether he still think so. In addition to the cryptocurrency reaching its highest price level ever in December, several so-called institutional investors, such as large companies and super-rich individuals, have started backing the cryptocurrency.
An example of this is the IT company Microstrategy, which has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the cryptocurrency – and which has also started to borrow money from its investors to be able to buy even more bitcoin.
Another IT company that has chosen to invest in the cryptocurrency is the payment giant Paypal. Their announcement to start offering their customers trading in cryptocurrencies (something that competitor Square also does) probably contributed to launching bitcoin’s current bull market.
Among the rich people who have chosen to invest in the cryptocurrency are Wall Street veterans Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller – who both have great confidence in bitcoin as a future alternative to gold.
The summer of defi
During the summer, the entire crypto world was engulfed in hype by the so-called defi-segment. Defi stands for decentralized finance and is a term used to describe projects that use smart contracts on ethereum’s blockchain to create financial products, such as betting markets.
One of the projects that received the most attention during the summer was the cryptocurrency yfi, whose price increased by as much as 46,000 percent in a few weeks, and which even reached a higher exchange rate than bitcoin (albeit with a significantly lower market value).
Another hyped project was the decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Uniswap, which aroused what can almost be called hysteria when it announced that it would launch its own cryptocurrency.
Pretty soon, however, there was talk that the segment was a bubble – and in September, the prices of the various cryptocurrencies also began to fall sharply.
Central bank issued digital currencies – the next big thing?
In September, the Bahamas, with its sand dollar, became the first country in the world to launch a digital version of its national currency. Soon, however, they will be joined by other much larger countries.
The largest country to invest in the technology – and also the country apart from the Bahamas that has come the furthest in its development of a digital currency – is China. They are currently piloting their digital yuan in several cities. However, there is no clear launch date for the project.
Sweden is also one of the countries that have come a long way in the development of a central bank-issued digital currency. During the year, the Swedish central bank piloted the so-called e-krona together with the large consulting company Accenture. Not much is known about the project yet – except that the e-krona is planned to be based on a blockchain.
The EU’s financial branch, the European Central Bank (ECB), is considering developing a digital version of the euro. The final decision on the issue is expected in January. Countries such as the United Kingdom, Brazil, India and Japan are also considering launching central bank-issued digital currencies.
Ethereum 2.0 begins its long journey towards launch
In early December, the first block of the cryptocurrency ethereum’s new 2.0 blockchain was mined. This has started a process that is expected to continue for two years – and which will end with the new blockchain taking over the entire ethereum network.
Ethereum 2.0 means the biggest update ever for the cryptocurrency. The big change lies in the transition to a so-called “proof of stake” system, which means that miners of ethereum make investments to mine the cryptocurrency.
Ethereum 1.0 (and most other big blockchains, such as bitcoin) use a so-called “proof of work” system. This means that miners use computer power to solve advanced equations, and then is rewarded for this in cryptocurrency.
Suspected pyramid schemes and global scams
This spring, Trijo News published a major investigation of Crowd1, a Swedish-owned company that promises its members large profits paid out in cryptocurrencies – but which is accused by authorities in several countries of being a pyramid scheme. The article received a lot of attention, and later in the year, media companies such as BBC published their own articles on the company.
When Trijo News published its article, the company was led by the Swedish celebrity entrepreneur Johan Staël von Holstein. In early December, he announced that he was leaving his post. However, Crowd1 still has several Swedes in leading positions in the company, including the founder Jonas Werner.
In 2020, Trijo News also wrote articles about two similar suspected global frauds, Jubilee Ace and Cash FX Group.
