2020 has been a truly extraordinary year that most of us will hardly forget for the rest of our lives. It has been defined by isolation, sorrow, devastation and, of course, resilience.

For crypto, this has arguably been one of the most turbulent and eventful years. As it is finally drawing to a close, U.Today is taking a look at the top cryptocurrency events that the industry lived and breathed throughout all these months.

13. Justin Sun gifts crypto to Warren Buffett

Justin Sun, the controversial CEO of Tron, finally had a dinner with the “Oracle of Omaha” himself this February. Sun gifted Buffett a Samsung phone with a Bitcoin wallet that the billionaire later donated to charity.             

12. John McAfee gets arrested in Spain (October)

After reneging on his special Bitcoin promise in January, crypto baron John McAfee got arrested over tax evasion in Spain this June. The SEC also charged him with fraudulently promoting sketchy ICOs.

11. J.K. Rowling trolls Bitcoiners (May)

When mildly inebriated “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling casually asked the accursed cryptocurrency community to explain Bitcoin to her, she did not hear the end of it.

Thousands of replies later, she got pretty good at trolling Bitcoiners herself.

10. Uniswap surpasses Coinbase in trading volume (August) 

It was a very hot DeFi summer. Decentralized automated market maker Uniswap ended up surpassing Coinbase, the leading U.S. exchange, by trading volume in late August, making everyone question the future of centralized exchanges.   

9. PTJ gives Bitcoin his blessing (May)

Paul Tudor Jones, one of the world’s most prominent hedge fund managers, invested in Bitcoin in May, which was perceived as a strong vote of confidence for the leading cryptocurrency. Many of his peers, including Stanley Druckenmiller, followed suit.

8. BitMEX’s downfall: CFTC charges, Arthur Hayes’ departure (September)

BitMEX, the crypto derivatives exchange that reigned supreme in 2018, was charged with operating an unregistered trading platform by the CFTC while its cofounders, including Arthur Hayes, were handed criminal charges by the DOJ. BitMEX is no longer even in the top five derivatives exchanges.

7. “Black Thursday”: Bitcoin and Ethereum lose 50 percent in one day (March). Peter Brandt says zero could be Bitcoin’s ultimate bottom

With global lockdowns, U.S. stocks crashing faster than during the Great Depression and coins losing over half of their value in a single day on March 13, the world was seemingly descending into Tartarus. Peter Brandt then claimed that Bitcoin could ultimately fall to zero.

6. Bitcoin halving event and sky-high predictions (May)

After a crash in March, everyone was awaiting Bitcoin’s quadrennial halving with bated breath, and debates started raging about whether the event was priced in.

Back then, U.Today recalled the top post-halving predictions.

5. PayPal announces cryptocurrency service (October)

The start of Bitcoin’s massive run coincided with PayPal officially announcing its cryptocurrency service that is already a huge hit with users.

4. Kim Kardashian and Bill Gates’ Twitter accounts get hacked to advertise Bitcoin giveaway scam (July)

Remember the day when Bill Gates, Kim Kardashian, Elon Musk and plenty of other A-listers started hoodwinking their followers into sending them Bitcoin? We sure do.

3. MicroStrategy adopts Bitcoin as its primary reserve asset (August)

MicroStrategy, the largest business intelligence firm, has set a whole new trend in motion by making Bitcoin its primary treasury reserve asset. Its stock ended up soaring while the company’s CEO, Michael Saylor, has become one of the most prominent voices in the cryptocurrency industry.                     

2. Ripple gets sued by SEC (December)

After Telegram finally ceded ground to the SEC in May, nipping its multi-billion-dollar blockchain project in the bud, the agency went after a much bigger target. The securities watchdog dropped its bombshell lawsuit against Ripple and crushed the XRP cryptocurrency right before Christmas, with the community accusing it of taking notes from the Grinch.

1. Bitcoin breaks above $20,000 (December)

Were there even any doubts about what would take first place? The crypto king’s new all-time highs may seem like old news by now, but smashing through the $20,000 resistance level in early December was a massive accomplishment. After defeating the final boss, Bitcoin continued to surge higher, with $30,000 now in sight.

Our top interviews

Throughout 2020, U.Today’s Rimma Trukhina also spoke with some of the most influential people within the crypto industry. Here are some of the highlights:

Max Keiser: “There’s only one cryptocurrency and that’s Bitcoin. There are other pretenders to the throne. For example, Ethereum is an exit scam. Bitcoin Cash is an exit scam. Bitcoin Satoshi Vision is an exit scam. XRP is an exit scam and the other 5,000 funds are exit scams.”

Roger Ver: “I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to get rid of government completely, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a worthy goal, right?”

Charles Hoskinson: “What that functionally means is that we’ll probably see new forms of government be created where we start dividing the things you can trust humans to do and the things historically humans are very bad at dealing with.”

Dan Larimer: “Mass adoption of blockchain is inevitable. All the major companies are investigating the technology and they’re going to deploy it to empower their systems, to increase the level of integrity, auditability, and transparency.”

John McAfee: “I think that every country and every nation-state on this planet will launch their own cryptocurrency. They will be forced to do so because it is so clear that fiat currencies, paper currencies, and even credit cards are so vastly inferior in terms of safety, speed, and ease.”

With the year of the Metal Ox just around the corner, U.Today wishes all of our readers health, happiness and even more bullishness in 2021!