SBF and SEC Chairman Gary Gensler are the annual losers, while Justin Sun and Tether CTO are the annual winners.
Original title: “Crypto in 2023: Top Winners and Losers”
Written by Francesco
Compiled by: Sharon, BlockBeats
Editor’s note:
*As the year draws to a close, crypto industry researcher Francesco looks back at the major events that will take place in the cryptocurrency field in 2023 and summarizes what he considers to be the biggest winners and losers. Among them, he believes that SBF, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, US Senator Elisabeth Warren, former Binance CEO CZ and maximalists are the biggest losers of the year, while US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, Tron founder Justin Sun, and Tether’s current CTO Paolo Ardoino , L2 track, Solana, friend.tech are the biggest winners of the year. At the same time, he predicted that friend.tech is likely to make a comeback in 2024. BlockBeats compiled the original text as follows: *
In this post, I decided to try something a little different and look back at the past year and make two lists: Winners and Losers for 2023.
Let’s start with those hoping for a better year.
The Losers of 2023
SBF
The mention of SBF here may represent a larger category of smart people who think they can deceive themselves and cover up their sins through bribes and large sums of money. However, SBF now serves as a first-person example that this is not always the case.
Previous bear market cycles have shown those swimming naked, with the classic revolving door becoming that between cryptocurrency companies and prisons. The United States is trying to prove that anyone who rises to power through deception will eventually be brought to justice.
However, SBF also demonstrates the problem with our system, which is that media and government protection can be bought, and if enough money is paid, everyone can turn a blind eye to the problem.
As mentioned above, the SBF category actually includes all the other scammers who act cool and arrogant (I see you, Do Kwon) and end up outright jailed for their crimes.
Gary Gensler
I feel sorry for this man and I can only think of very few examples of politicians who were as embarrassing as he was. He clearly acted with malicious intent, as has been confirmed by his past statements. His persecution of cryptocurrencies is his blood sacrifice for promotion, to show his ruthless masters that he is a good boy and will do whatever it takes to preserve the status quo.
I really feel for this guy and I’m pretty sure he’ll be crying loudly when he gets home. To me, this guy is the biggest loser.
Elizabeth Warren
Imagine someone who is against both banks and cryptocurrencies. Imagine then that you spent your entire career as an anti-bank Democrat, opposing the greatest tool that could help decentralize banks and potentially provide them with their only real competition.
However, by selling your soul, you can become such a person.
Is there anything else that needs to be said? If you can, someone in the know please explain to her how cryptocurrencies work. She doesn’t know it, but she spent years advocating for encryption solutions until they were developed, and now she’s back to the status quo.
What a loser……
CZ
It only makes sense to rank CZ at number 4 on this list.
CZ, who has long been a voice for the crypto industry, has pleaded guilty and reached an agreement with Binance for a multi-billion dollar fine. And all this is not over yet, CZ will go on trial in the first quarter of 2024 and is currently prohibited from leaving the United States.
In retrospect, this may be natural or unthinkable, depending on where you stand on your sympathy for Binance. For the cryptocurrency industry as a whole, this means eliminating a systemic risk of eliminating exchanges that might be deemed too big to fail.
Still, I can’t help but sympathize with CZ. It is difficult for an exchange like Binance to operate across multiple regulations. The message here is clear: You may be able to resist in the short term, but U.S. authorities will catch you if they choose, even if you are an offshore entity operating in the United States.
Maximalism
The biggest loser in 2023 may be maximalism.
The continuation of the Ethereum scaling roadmap, with the development and deployment of L2, Optimistic and ZK Rollup, new data availability solutions, Retaking and a new L1 focused on gaming and parallelization (Monad, Blast, Neon) for blocks The evolution of the chain has a clear path planned.
This path is built through modularity and interoperability, not siled ecosystems. Those who bet on closed systems, failing to take full advantage of network effects across protocols and networks, are now facing trouble; those who thrive on the technical superiority of their own networks are now struggling to make their own arguments in cross-chain ecosystems Worry about survival.
On the other hand, those who bet on cooperation and coordination benefit most, taking a win-win approach that is not always centered on self-interest. In 2024, it would be embarrassing to be a maximalist.
Next, let’s look at the biggest winners in 2023.
2023 Winners
Coinbase
Brian is by far our favorite tech bald guy.
We don’t have enough space in this article to highlight every positive development at Coinbase this year. Despite this, in my opinion, Coinbase is the largest company that still fits the spirit of cryptocurrency, and we have seen many times how they have challenged the SEC’s ruling and taken it to court.
In addition to being a CEX and caring about its business, Coinbase is a force for good in the industry and deserves to be among the 2023 winners. While the numbers themselves have limited relevance, Coinbase stock has performed well since the start of the year.
In a difficult year for trading, Coinbase has managed to shift much of its revenue to non-trading revenue. Among them, their custody business will perform particularly well in 2024, considering that most ETFs propose Coinbase as a custodian.
Justin Sun
Justin Sun is one of the god-like OG figures in the crypto world. The lines between him and Tron are more blurred than ever. However, we can’t ignore Sun’s place among the 2023 winners.
Tron’s USDT has now become the most traded stablecoin and is widely used in third world countries plagued by inflation.
Arguably, this is the best use case in the cryptocurrency world today, providing real benefits to countless people around the world.
Paolo Ardoino
Paolo is another great Italian tradition, along with pizza and pasta.
After taking on the role of CEO, the King of Tether continues to be a trailblazer in the industry. In 2023, Tether reported excess reserves of more than $32 billion and was one of the largest holders of U.S. Treasury securities, holding more than $70 billion.
Tether’s dominance found an unexpected ally: the bankruptcy of US banks (Silicon Valley Bank, etc.) that hosted accounts for USDC (USDT’s main competitor).
Tether’s hybrid structure, which blends offshore compliance with billions of dollars in Treasury holdings and close relationships with regulators (even involving the Secret Service), makes it an interesting example. Paolo has a golden aura in the industry: He is a staunch libertarian Bitcoin supporter, but his company dominates the junkcoin market and has close ties with U.S. regulators, often confiscating and freezing funds.
We’ve seen other Bitcoin supporters lose ground over trivial matters, so why does the community always turn a blind eye to Paolo?
L2
You will most likely be trading on L2 for most of 2023. First there was Optimism and Arbitrum, then ZkSync or something like Scroll, Linea or Layer Zero.
The Ethereum scaling roadmap is moving forward, and there are a lot of new people joining!
While many believe this helps attract transaction volume and attention to Ethereum, this is exactly what scaling the system is all about. In fact, L2’s successful combination is a testament to Ethereum’s success.
There’s not much to say about it: this is one of the most active areas in the entire industry, with some fascinating and innovative applications recently released. Stay tuned for 2024, when many networks will launch their mainnets.
Solana
We can’t avoid having Solana on the throne. What goes down must go up, and this is especially true for the price and ecological activity of Solana, which has experienced explosive growth this year.
The network that was considered a “ghost town” at the beginning of this year has successfully undergone a reinvention, including removing ties to bad actors, reorganizing along community lines, creating new tools and infrastructure, and benefiting customers. Build a suite of DeFi products, add new use cases and ways to stake and use SOL in DeFi.
This combination results in updates on on-chain activity and transaction volume.
Solana is back.
friend.tech
Best dApp of the year! Looking back at the first week after friend.tech was founded, I mentioned in my article that I thought it had no future. Now I want to say RIP to my article.
In a period of dry narrative, friend.tech grabs most of the attention. This eventually slowed down, raising concerns about the future of “Web3 social media.”
However, I am very confident that the friend.tech hype will come back in 2024 as we get closer to the airdrop.
Those are my eleven winners and losers for 2023.
