People all over the globe are ready to welcome 2025 with fireworks and big parties. It is high time for U.Today to recall the key cryptocurrency news stories that have defined the year 2024.
12. Kabosu, the face of the Doge meme, passes away (May)
Kabosu, the dog behind the legendary Doge meme, passed away in May at the age of 18.
The world’s most famous Shiba Inu, which was singlehandedly responsible for popularizing this Japanese breed of dogs, was adopted from a puppy mill before turning into a huge internet celebrity.
The Doge meme inspired the Dogecoin cryptocurrency, which is currently valued at $47 billion.
The DOGE meme coin experienced a major rally in 2024, surging by more than 250%.
11. Ripple launches RLUSD stablecoin (December)
Despite still being enmeshed in a legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), San Francisco-based blockchain company Ripple has waded into the stablecoin sector with its RLUSD token.
The stablecoin, which prides itself on its regulatory compliance, will be competing against current market leaders such as Tether (USDT) and Circle’s USDC.
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10. Celebrity meme coin mania (May)
Iggy Azalea was the ultimate it-girl of summer 2014 with her massive hit “Fancy,” becoming the first artist since The Beatles to simultaneously occupy the number one and two spots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The mainstream career of the Australian rapper faded in a short span of time. In 2024, however, she launched a Solana-based meme coin, whose market cap peaked at $250 million.
Apart from Azalea, several other D-list celebrities have jumped on the short-lived and controversial celebrity meme coin trend.
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9. Germany’s Bitcoin selling spree (July)
Saxony, a German state, ruffled the feathers of Bitcoiners by going on a massive selling spree this summer.
In early 2024, Germany ended up among the top holders of Bitcoin after local police seized a whopping 50,000 BTC from a now-defunct movie piracy website. However, it went on to liquidate all of it.
Bitcoiners then started taking a victory lap after the price of Bitcoin surged higher later in 2024.
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8. HBO’s Satoshi documentary
The cryptocurrency industry saw more mainstream attention with the recent release of a much-talked-about Satoshi documentary by HBO.
What was hyped as a major reveal ended up being a major flop. The documentary alleged that Canadian developer Peter Todd was the man who started it all.
The documentary failed to bring anything new to the table, mainly regurgitating old information.
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7. Bitcoin halving (April)
Bitcoin had yet another quadrennial halving on April 19, with its block reward eventually being reduced to 3.125 BTC.
The halving event was accompanied by concerns about the sustainability of the Bitcoin mining industry. Due to smaller block rewards, smaller miners found it more difficult to turn a profit.
Those who were betting on Bitcoin prices to rise after the halving were correct once again. Even though correlation does not necessarily imply causation, this is the fourth time the cryptocurrency has ended up surging higher in the same year it underwent a block reward reduction.
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6. Mt. Gox repayments finally start (July)
The Mt. Gox drama has been hanging over the Bitcoin space like the sword of Damocles for a decade.
The demise of the undisputed market leader came after a damning hack that resulted in the loss of roughly 750,000 Bitcoins in early 2014.
While creditors were desperate to get their coins back, the market was also being haunted by the fear of strong selling pressure.
In July, Mt. Gox finally started repayments, causing a short-lived market crash. However, contrary to some expectations, Mt. Gox creditors did not rush to sell tokens en masse.
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5. Former FTX and Binance CEOs go to jail
The stunning downfall of someone who was once supposed to be the next Warren Buffett has been widely covered for years.
The FTX saga continued well into 2024, with former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried being sentenced to 25 years in March.
The former Binance CEO, CZ, also received a four-month prison sentence that he had to serve at Lompoc II, a low-security correctional institution located in California.
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4. MicroStrategy’s market cap hits $100 billion (November)
MicroStrategy became one of the biggest success stories of 2024. The company’s shares soared by a staggering 500%, vastly outperforming Bitcoin.
MSTR went on to reach a new record high, eclipsing the peak that the business intelligence firm recorded during the peak of the dot-com bubble in March 2000.
Following its stunning comeback, MicroStrategy came close to surpassing chip giant Intel by market cap despite being an obscure, unknown company just a few years ago.
MicroStrategy cofounder Michael Saylor ended up becoming one of the biggest celebrities in the investment world, approaching four million followers on X.
At the same time, Saylor’s debt-for-Bitcoin strategy has also become the target of increasing skepticism.
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3. Gary Gensler’s resignation announcement (November)
The SEC boss has emerged as the main nemesis of the embattled cryptocurrency industry due to his legal battles with such major crypto players as Coinbase, Binance and Ripple.
His resignation announcement was met with widespread jubilation within the crypto space in December.
The cryptocurrency industry is hopeful that Gensler’s replacement will signify a much more friendlier stance following intense lobbying.
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2. Bitcoin hitting $100,000 (December)
The leading cryptocurrency finally managed to surge into six-digit territory on Dec. 5.
Even though the milestone was somehow anticlimactic, it was still a testament to the resilience of the nascent asset.
The new price milestone came just months after the Fed cut interest rates for the first time in years.
The cryptocurrency also rallied higher due to anticipation of much friendlier regulatory policies in the U.S.
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1. Launch of Bitcoin ETFs (January)
The debut of Bitcoin ETFs helped to define the bullish cryptocurrency narrative of 2024.
The cryptocurrency community was watching with astonishment how these products were shattering new milestones, waking up to eye-popping inflows that were being recorded by BlackRock’s immensely successful iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF.
Recently, these products collectively surpassed Satoshi Nakamoto in terms of total Bitcoin holdings.
Bitwise has predicted that these products will attract even bigger inflows in 2025.
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Happy New Year! U.Today wishes you a prosperous and joyful 2025!