The year 2022 was evil but it's a good thing in the end

As I write this article, it is December 20, 2022. A few days ago, France lost against Argentina during the World Cup in Qatar. Even if the team fought well, this failure echoes – with relevance – with the bitter observation that we can make of this year.

Well, the transition isn't perfect, I grant you that, but what I wanted to say is that while watching the football match, I couldn't help but make allegories with what we were experiencing in "the world of cryptos" to use an expression that is almost obsolete today.

This year, in fact, has ultimately been nothing more than a fight (with a catastrophic outcome, of course) between opposing forces. There are (in my opinion) those who seek in a (truly) humanist approach that "cryptocurrencies" benefit the greatest number and that they are used for rather ethical purposes. On the other side, there are those who only see it as a means of enriching themselves personally and who create companies for the sole purpose of selling their tokens.

It’s a very Manichean vision, I grant you. For the purposes of this article, we will settle for this dichotomy of worlds.

The goal here, above all, is to make a kind of positive assessment (yes, yes) of the thunderous year that we have experienced and to try to take stock of the lessons that we can learn.

What are the hasty conclusions that we can make?

Well, if we take a first-level assessment, the conclusions can be very dramatic. A stablecoin is stable in name only. A 30 year old guy who creates an exchange can become a billionaire in 3 years and screw it up in 3 days. Hackers have gorged themselves like never before with millions stolen from DeFi protocols. Most of the tokens launched in 2022 lost all value and the teams made do with what was in the fund.

The big crooks of traditional finance find a new way to do business without having to reveal their identities. Anyone can create a business called " Web3 " and hide his identity because after all we don't know the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. NFTs make us believe that they are technological innovations when they are only digital lottery scratch cards. Popularizers pretend to be good-hearted professors when they are only there to "promote" their affiliate links to dubious projects.

Yes, I know, it hurts...However, I pushed the point deliberately but I think we also have to look at things as they are.

Deep down, even in this chaos, there are still positive things. I'm not saying that because I've read books on personal development that have told me that I absolutely have to see the glass as full rather than half empty. No, seriously, I think there are some really good things in this dark chaos.

Now let's see the positive things that are there despite everything

The first big positive thing that we see in this year 2022 is that in the end "bad buzz is a buzz" as they say. Basically, even if we talked a lot about cryptocurrencies from a negative point of view, the fact remains that we talked a lot about them...

So yes, it was especially during the bull run of 2021 that there was the best advertising and the best attractiveness for newcomers, certainly. However, the fact that the major media (mainstream in particular) mention cryptocurrencies (even in a negative sense), always indirectly creates better visibility for this technology. Likewise, this makes cryptoassets as important as other assets. It’s not nothing, eh 😉

It's been 14 years since Bitcoin was born, but the fact remains that we are still at the beginning of mass adoption. Thus, this year 2022 is also the year (and especially since the fall of FTX) where governments around the world can no longer ignore the interest shown by users (especially the youngest) in cryptocurrencies.

Is legislation expected?

I know what you're thinking: "Oh, but this bad publicity will push governments to legislate harder on cryptocurrencies." Yes, that's indeed what seems to be happening. Some senators in the US are even working on laws to ban certain cryptocurrencies. The goal is to avoid future scandals or the takeover of the industry by borderline personalities like that of Sam Bankman Fried.

And what we can predict is that other countries will want to follow the American path. We have seen that in Europe and particularly in France, cryptocurrency legislation risk of hardening.

Yes, I am not Madame Irma but politicians want to limit the risks and protect victims of scams as best as possible. Can we really blame them? Yes and no, but let’s go further in our reasoning.

Is legislation against cryptocurrencies really to be feared? I'm asking you this seriously.

I mean, if we don't do anything, little crooks, thugs, poor guys with no morals will continue to ruin the ecosystem. We will see more and more crypto influencers making 2-minute videos on TikTok, garnering millions of views for yet another bogus project. Is this what we want? Is this all we deserve?

No and I imagine you agree with me. Good legislation may be necessary and it is even essential in certain uses.

We cannot continue to cultivate the endless greed of the protagonists and entrepreneurs of the crypto industry. Do you remember this craze for the 20% of the UST token on the Anchor protocol? Tell yourself that this protocol had a much greater impact on the fall of the market than you think. The greed, the lack of knowledge of the so-called "experts in the field" led to the depeg of LandUSD…Yes, I remind you here: it is the day after the fall of the UST that the bloodbath began…

There comes a time when you have to recognize your wrongs and face the truth: Many are guilty and have even favored this degeneration, because of the visibility they have. How many people have advocated pure scams? How many people have been "pushed" to invest with "analyses" from "experts"? This is likely to continue because these people protect themselves with "I told you to do your own research". Yes, there you go... The excuse is ready: it's the investors' fault.

So, this lack of laws benefits vagrants and does not protect victims. With this in mind, yes, regulation seems necessary.

However, I will stop you right away on one point: I am talking here about the need to legislate cryptocurrencies but I am not talking about Bitcoin.

Let me explain.

Why can Bitcoin emerge bigger and stronger?

Even if we tend to conflate crypto and bitcoin, here, in the field of legislation, I am referring to cryptocurrencies. In other words, I am talking about these companies created by entrepreneurs who create tokens or cryptocurrencies for commercial purposes. Bitcoin has nothing to do with this type of project and cryptocurrencies.

Moreover, if I express myself more clearly, I would even say that this year 2022 was the year where Bitcoin showed to what extent it stands out from other cryptocurrencies. Call them altcoins or whatever you want, but Bitcoin doesn't have the same goals or technical foundations at all. Bitcoin is different in every way.

Thus, legal regulation of cryptocurrencies would not affect (in theory) Bitcoin, which remains above any control, even state control…

And, it seems that crypto users have just noticed it. Finally, Bitcoin has been drowned in the bull run years by the arrival of ever more ambitious and "revolutionary" projects. The promises of quick gains have never been so relayed by all this armada of new popularizers, who have become masters of the " shillings"

Of course, Bitcoin looked very bland compared to all the projects that had relied on formidable marketing masters: giveaways, sponsored videos, advertising, airdrops: everything was there to attract customers. Even people who had never invested in the stock market or who were never interested in personal finance suddenly started buying cryptos.

It's so easy to »invest in cryptocurrencies  " today you will tell me... So, they jumped head first into what we call " shitcoins " but that's part of the experience. Maybe today they'll realize that bitcoin is different?

I hope so, anyway…

Final word on this blessed year…

So, I have already said everything to conclude without repeating myself. I still dare to rephrase it: this year has been a good year for Bitcoin. It is the cryptocurrency which lost the least in the end and which even strengthened. Yes, while everyone was chattering about the FTX scandal, Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador declared that he would buy a bitcoin every day. This tells you how much confidence in Bitcoin is still so great….

Alongside record fundraising and a slew of giveaways, innovations on the Bitcoin network are ever more numerous as Lightning Network for example, which allows micro-transactions to be carried out instantly and almost without fees. Bitcoiners continue to build and improve the ecosystem, despite the current turmoil and hangover from last year...

Note: At the time I published this article, I had just received the email sent by Ray Youssef, the founder of Paxful. He explains that he decides to remove ETH from the platform for various reasons. The main reason being that it would be more beneficial for users to focus more on bitcoin than other altcoins…

Finally, I would like to point out that in this post I do not want to put on blinders and only consider Bitcoin. No, I am not a radical maxi and decentralized finance has brought great innovations. Besides, this is how I would end with this positive assessment of the year 2022. To remind you that great ideas, daring and absolutely disruptive projects have appeared. We cannot decently deny it.

Let's just hope that a healthier education is provided to newcomers. Let's also hope that the ecosystem takes advantage of this great purge to focus on serious crypto projects that can make the world a better place.

Because, yes, it is possible and it is up to us to make it a reality.

Let's hope that the year 2023 is better, and there is a good chance that it will be. It won’t be difficult you tell me…

—–

If you disagree with my conclusion or have any comments, please feel free to continue the discussion on Twitter if you feel like it (@zonebitcoinco)