ROLLUP: Top 5 Biggest Crypto Events Of 2024

Bankless Nation, welcome to the yearly roll-up where we recap the entire year of crypto into the five biggest events that defined the 2024 year in crypto, which was a very good year, I will say. That was a that was an incredible year for crypto. I think one of the biggest years that we've had so far, and we're gonna go through all the events that made it such. First, though, however, we are going to speedrun through the five biggest news items of the week, because of course this is also the weekly roll-up and recap the week in crypto like we always do. Uh, but since it's Christmas week, of course, it's a slow week, not too much to talk about here. Uh so once we do the five biggest things of last week, we're going to do the five biggest things of the whole year to help us reflect on 2024 as we all prepare to enter 2025. Just remind us what happened this year? Why was this year such a good year? Uh before we get into all of that, first a message from our friends and sponsors over at you may have noticed that my other half, Ryan, he is out for the holidays. Because it's a slow week, I think I can take this episode by myself. So he is uh playing with his AI wife, AI kids. So you guys just got me on this episode. We have never done this before. Uh usually there's both of us. Uh, but um, Ryan wanted a little break and the show must go on. And so your boy is doing the weekly roll-up solo, which is why you're gonna be hearing a lot of my voice. We're gonna see how much you guys really like hearing my voice because you're gonna get only that for the next hour or so. So let's go ahead and get right into the markets. Bitcoin price starting the week at $101,000, down 5.5% to where we are now at $96,300. Uh, we've been kind of kind of shaking around below the $100,000 mark. Uh, but uh I think people are just realizing that this is a pretty normal, healthy pullback in the grand scheme of things. Uh the last week, Federal Reserve signaled that they were not going to cut rates as much as we thought that they were into 2025, and people are dealing with that reality. But in my personal opinion, this is just uh a speed bump onto higher and higher prices. It'll just take us a little bit longer to get there. Uh ETH price, doing something similar down a little bit more than Bitcoin, start of the week at $3,600, and ending the week where we are now at $3,350, down about 8.5% on the week. Some interesting activity happening in the ETF flows world. There are some big outflows days out of Bitcoin. Uh $670 million flew out of the Bitcoin ETFs on the 19th, 277 out on the 20th, 226 million out on the 23rd, and 240 out on the 24th. So painting some pretty big outflow numbers, four days in a row. Uh, but nonetheless, uh the 10 days prior to that were some very big inflows days. So we're just seeing a small exiting out of the uh the Bitcoin ETFs. ETH, ETH outflows showing something a little bit different. Uh some some mixed results, I would say. Um ETH had a couple of medium days of outflows on the 19th and 20th, but otherwise dwarfed by a very couple very large 100 million days of inflows on the 17th and the 23rd, and then uh the day before Christmas, Christmas Eve, a $50 million inflow day. Uh so actually a divergence in the Bitcoin and Ether ETF uh inflows, where Ether is seeing a lot more of inflows and Bitcoin is seeing some kind of kind of large outflows. Uh nonetheless, this did not do anything to assist the Ether BTC ratio. We are currently at 0.048 on the ratio, which is down from Ether's recent strength that it had. Uh it got when it hit the low in November 21st of 0.032. That was the low. It got up above 0.04, and everyone was saying, oh, Ether's back, baby, let's go. Uh but then we are back down to 0.0348. But nonetheless, that is a higher low. Uh so there's still room for strength uh continuing into January of 2025. We will see what the ratio does. Total crypto market cap, we are below $3.5 trillion. We got above it, uh almost touched $4 trillion, uh, but is looking like we might not hit $4 trillion in the year 2024. We are currently at $3.456 trillion, waiting to get right above that $3.5 trillion number. And a quick layer two update brought to you by a mantle, a layer two that we enjoy. Uh layer two B, I want to kind of do a check-in on the yearly scaling growth of layer twos in Ethereum. We started the year of scaling the scaling factor of Ethereum, which was, of course, if you are uh cumulative to all of the layer twos of Ethereum, how many Ethereums they represent in scaling factor. We started the year at 4x. So all of the layer twos cumulatively had 4x the capacity of Ethereum at the one-year mark one year ago, January 2020, uh 2024. Uh, we are ending the year with a 15x scaling factor. So over the year, the Ethereum layer twos went from a 4x scaling factor to a 15x scaling factor. And if you just look at that pink chart, that is just a really nice pink, pink upwards line. Uh, pretty, pretty strong, pretty healthy, uh, just continuing. Not too fast, not too slow. I think I I definitely want to see like a 100x scaling factor. Uh, but if we were at 4x in January and we're at 15x in December, uh, it won't take us too long to get to 100x uh because that is going to grow exponentially. Also, let's check in on ultrasound money and the issuance of ETH over the year. Over the last year, 276,000 ether was issued net, net issuance over the year. Ether in the year 2024 was net inflationary. Uh, we burned over half that amount, so uh very rough terms. I I couldn't get these perfect numbers, but roughly we issued 900,000 ether and then we burned 600,000 ether, leading to the aggregate net issuance that we had over the year, about 276,000 ether. So we are still burning in the year 2024. We burned two ether for every three ether that we issued, leading to a net aggregate issuance of 276,000 ether. Moves of the week, three tokens that I think stood out to me. Uh, movement, the move-based layer two, up 48% on the week. PUGGIS, the new PUDGI token, up 25% on the week. And then Virtuals Protocol, the AI agent platform, up 18% on the week. 18% on the week, not terribly crazy in crypto terms, but we do have to remind ourselves that the virtuals protocol is on a 320% tear over the 30-day period. And so it is crossing $3 billion, a huge signal of strength in the AI agent world. Virtuals is uh is an AI agent platform to easily create an AI agent using their virtuals tokens. They've managed to create value capture into their token very, very well. Uh, and this has been the one of the leading AI agent platforms on base. Uh, and and uh we actually did an episode, uh, Ryan did an episode while I was out hiking in the world of uh the Patagonia. Ryan did an episode with our AI expert co-host, Ejazz, uh, with Ethermage, Jason Tang, who's one of the co-founders of the Virtuals Protocol. This uh episode is doing numbers on on YouTube and around. And so if you guys are paying attention to these AI episodes that we are doing, definitely watch this one. It's probably one of the bigger AI episodes that we've recorded recently. So that's the markets. Man, this goes a lot faster when there's just one of me. Coming up next, we're gonna do the weekly roll up. El Salvador strikes a deal with the IMF to limit their Bitcoin activities. North Korea is trading on hyper liquid, giving the other traders the heebie jeebies. President elect Donald Trump continues the pro crypto appointees and micro strategy.

They did what they always do. They bought some more Bitcoin. So we're going to get to all of this and more. But first, a moment to talk about some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible. And we're back into the weekly roll-up section of this episode. Once again, we're going to do the five, actually, there are six here, six biggest things of the last week to do the weekly roll-up. Because once again, it's Christmas. It was a quiet week. Not too much happened. Uh, and then after we do the weekly roll-up, we are going to do the yearly roll-up, the five biggest things that define the year 2024. But nonetheless, here we go into the weekly roll-up, starting with number one, El Salvador to limit Bitcoin activities for a $1.4 billion deal with the IMF. El Salvador has agreed to scale back its Bitcoin-related initiatives in order to secure a $1.4 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. Uh, I would say the IMF is like just opposed, almost diametrically opposed to Bitcoin. IMF kind of just represents the incumbent, entrenched global world old uh order of like the fiat system and dollar hegemony. Uh and so, yeah, I would say it's pretty antagonistic to Bitcoin. And the IMF has been very uh unhappy with El Salvador and other countries' uh flirtations with Bitcoin, El Salvador's honestly commitments to Bitcoin. Uh, but in order to secure a $1.4 billion loan, the El Salvador has made some concessions. Uh, and so they made optional acceptance of Bitcoin. Bitcoins are no longer mandated to accept Bitcoin as payment, uh, which was shifting from the previous legal requirement. Now, I've talked to people from El Salvador and in El Salvador and foreigners who have traveled to El Salvador. This uh mandate to accept Bitcoin was mostly just on paper. This was not something that I think anyone truly experienced while being in El Salvador. That there's no one forcing people to re uh take Bitcoin. And honestly, there's not a lot of actual commerce in El Salvador that is Bitcoin denominated. People are mostly just doing what they're what they've always been doing before Bitcoin. There are there are Bitcoin sectors. Um, there's probably big Bitcoin corners of El Salvador, but from what I have heard, this is not like a very large part. So this was kind of like a free space that El Salvador was just able to give the IMF because it was already like this. Uh so that was the first concession.

The second concession, public sector limitations. The government will reduce its involvement in Bitcoin activities, further limiting Bitcoin purchases and transactions. That might be kind of big. They might not be able to buy any more Bitcoin. Uh, we will see. Tax payments, tax payments will be payable exclusively in the US dollar, discontinuing the acceptance of Bitcoins for tax obligations. So once again, uh enshrining the dollar as the de facto currency of El Salvador. This is kind of how the IMF works. If you want our loans, if you want our money, you have to lose our use our dollar. It's basically the fight of the uh US dollar empire versus Bitcoin. And then the uh Chivo, Chivo wallet phase out. The the uh El Salvadorian government has this Bitcoin wallet, uh, this e-wallet, Chivo, uh introduced in 2021 to facilitate Bitcoin transactions. Uh the government plans to gradually withdraw from this initiative. So those were the four things. Uh this deal is not uh inked. This is not done. This is the discussions, these are the terms. Uh we will see if this actually goes through, but um, I mean, I don't think these are very large concessions from what I can tell, other than the ability to buy future Bitcoin. Um, that one's kind of big. Uh, but uh, I think El Salvador is kind of.

Playing hardball, I think, with the IMF to get a $1.4 billion loan. Moving on to our second news item of the week: Hyperliquid and the DPRK, Hyper Liquid and North Korea. HyperLick is a crypto derivatives trading platform. It had its very large airdrop recently with no VC investment, so it paid out a bunch of tokens to uh its users, earning itself a very loyal fan base. It has been recently uh facing some scrutiny that uh emerged as wallets connected to the Lazarus group, connected to North Korean hackers, were discovered trading on hyperliquid. These wallets were actually emerged uh from Taylor Monahan, one of the probably the f one of the foremost security experts in this space who works works at Metamasks. She reported that these wallets were active on hyperliquid since at least October. Uh and

I think they're not just trading the through the lines here. They're not just trading on hyperliquid. Uh, what does North Korea do? They ha they exploit protocols. They try to find weaknesses in protocols. And so the existence of North Korea's capital on hyperliquid is not to say that they are just being D-Gens trading on hyperliquid. They are trying to use that capital to find economic exploits, exploits of some kind. Uh, probably is the assumption here. Uh so this is what Taylor Monahan kind of alluded to, uh, suggesting that the activity might be testing for vulnerabilities rather than just regular trading. Uh, as a result of this uh raising of the alarm, uh, over $250 million of outflows came out of Hyperliquid, uh, right uh about fears of security. Like when if you are a user with capital on on uh hyperliquid and then you discover that North Korea is also trading there, uh that would that would give you the heebie jeebies. I don't I wouldn't want my capital there. And so as a result, $256 million in net outflows, net withdrawals in just 30 hours happened. Hyperliquid said in its Discord that it is aware of reports circulating regarding activity of supposed DPRK addresses.

There has been no DPRK exploit or any exploit for that matter of Hyper Liquid. All user funds are accounted for. The response has been mixed from the crypto community. There was, of course, a denial of any breach. There was not a breach. But others have criticized the uh platform's centralized infrastructure. There are just four nodes of hyperliquid, if I uh recall. So, you know, the NASDAQ has one node and hyperliquid has four. So, you know, decentralization is a spectrum, but I wouldn't call four meaningfully decentralized. Uh, that's just my take. Um so there is a debate on whether the activity was indeed even a test by North Korean hackers or just regular trading. Um, but nonetheless, this is probably an ongoing situation. If you are a platform with four nodes and you have North Korea on you, that that is an interesting place to be. So that's probably going to be something to keep an eye on as time goes on. Onto the third news of the week. One of the co-founders and the CEO of Aptos Labs announced his resignation on December 19th. Um, notably after people have noticed that his compensation package vested. Uh his departure was described in several sources as him stepping down to start a new chapter uh with Aptos' Labs co-founder Avery Ching taking over as CEO. Uh Mo said he his plans to continue to have involvement with Aptos Labs as a strategic advisor while taking time to reflect on the broader industry trends and the future of blockchain tech. Uh Mo tweeted out uh today, I am stepping away from Aptos Labs to start a new chapter. One of my true passions lies in building companies from the ground up, and we have done that at Aptos Labs by building a world-class team. I leave Aptos Labs with the utmost confidence in the team and strongly believe that the talent and drive of Aptos Labs will continue our collective vision to life in the near future. Avery will be stepping in as Aptos Labs CEO to drive the company into the next next phase of growth. And then a bunch of more things. And then he says, I will always remain a champion of Aptos and his mission. As such, I'll stay on as a strategic advisor and look forward to continue to helping Aptos maintain its role as the world's leading blockchain. Uh posts on Twitter, other people commenting on this, uh reflected a mixture of sentiment, mainly to uh talking about the timing of the vesting of his package, his his vesting package, uh suggesting that uh the resignation also might have been done to internal politics or his personal views rather than a straightforward business decision. Um, but mainly I think this is natural for crypto twitter. If somebody is making money, that is where people point their attention and their eye or two. Uh and so the the dubious timing of the his departure along with the vesting of his uh equity and tokens, being able to sell them, uh it did not sit well with many, many people. I resonate with my uh co-founder Ryan's take, where he says, No disrespect to anyone, but you can't build the property rights layer on the internet on a three-year vesting schedule. Give me founders who are willing to dedicate decades to the project. Give me true believers. Uh and I think that's also just a good reminder of like what we are trying to do here. We are building the property rights layer of the internet, this property rights layer that that's that's what you know, Bankless is here for, that's what I'm here for, that's what Ryan is here for. That's what I think is the true North Star of the industry. Like property rights on the internet, decentralized property rights on the internet. Uh, and a three-year vesting schedule is something else, something different than than what those uh goals are. But those goals are just my goals. So to each their own. Moving on to our favorite subject on the Bankless Weekly Roll Up, Meme Coins. Uh, the Hawk Tua girl, Haley Welch, said on Friday that she is fully cooperating with lawyers representing people who lost money investing in her crypto token Hawk, which flopped in early December and amid allegations of malfeasance. Uh in a Twitter post, she posted, uh, she said, I take this situation extremely seriously. Uh the viral TikTok star, Haley, encouraged victims of the Hawk coin, victims of the Hawk coin, to reach out to the law firm suing Hawk's creators as she works to uncover the truth about the token. Um the the token when it launched kind of imploded right at the moment of creation uh because people observed that insiders had pocketed massive sums of money at the expense of people who purchased the token. Uh there was just a bunch of insider trading. Uh the the there was like a 97.5% concentration of the token in just like a few handfuls of wallets. Uh, and I think the message here is that Haley is positioning herself as also an unknown, uh, unknowing victim of people who influenced her to create this meme coin. Uh, because honestly, it's kind of a complicated thing to do. And like understanding that there are very important things to get right and things to get wrong, and you also really have to trust the people that are creating your meme coin. Uh, she probably didn't understand that. She feels like probably was just, I'm I'm guessing, without looking into this too much, she was just approached by people who's like, hey, we're gonna make you a meme coin, and it's gonna be fun and great. Uh meanwhile, not understanding that there are like terrible incentive, dubious incentives uh that needs to be controlled for. Uh, and it sounds like the creators of this meme coin who understood how to uh you know, launch a meme coin, operate a blockchain, pocket money, uh, is being pointed at by Haley uh and being accused of using Haley's brand to create a meme coin. Uh the the collapse of this coin sparked uh lawsuit allegations of securities violations against the creators of Hawk to a coin. Uh Berwick Law is the law firm suing them uh on behalf of people who lost money on Hawk, accused the creators of leveraging wealth's internet fames to unlawfully peddle an unregistered investment. Uh also one thing to note is just kind of look at the

Media organizations reporting on this. I've when I typed in uh just like tr looking for articles about this for the for this episode. The New York Post, NBC News, Newsweek, Fox, uh, all reporting on this. So this is why I've always kind of been like resistant to specifically celebrity meme coins, is they don't give they they don't particularly give the the industry the best name. And there's just a lot of things to get right and a lot of things that can go wrong, and a lot of things went wrong on this one. Moving on to the world of politics, Steven Miren has been nominated to the Council of Economic Advisors to the incoming Trump campaign, Trump administration, excuse me. Uh so Stephen Mirin, who is he? Uh he is a senior strategist at Hudson Bay Capital Management and also previously served as an economic policy advisor at the U.S. Department of the Treasury from 2020 to 2021. So he's no stranger to the uh Trump campaign, Trump administration. Uh he, Mirin, just for context, uh, expressed skepticism about large stimulus packages and critiqued the Federal Reserve's policies, particularly regarding their impact on inflation. And July 2024, he co-authored a paper with RBF Nurial Robini, who's like one of the most famous Bitcoin haters out there, like who's got a big name for himself, who's a Bitcoin hater, uh, arguing that the Treasury's reduction in long term bond issuance contributed to prolonged inflation by bringing forward liquidity from the future into the president, uh into the present. Uh I thought that was interesting. Um overall, this nomination aligns with Trump's recent appointments of individuals supportive of cryptocurrency and digital assets. Muirn's appointment is uh, of course, pending a state Senate confirmation.

Uh if he is confirmed, he will succeed Jared Bernstein as the CEA chair. Uh but overall, this is good for crypto. He is a pro-crypto, pro markets, uh, pro free markets uh individual. Uh and so this is just yet another uh pro-crypto person joining the uh the Trump cabinet. And bringing up the rear, of course, MicroStrategy joins the NASDAQ 100 and also acquired 5,265 more bitcoins. Uh so to talk about the acquisition first, between December 16th and the 22nd, MicroStrategy purchased 5,262 bitcoins for $561 million, averaging $106,000 per Bitcoin buying the top of Bitcoin, as Michael Saylor loves to do. Uh, as of today, uh the end of the year, the company holds $444,260 bitcoins. That is $27.7 billion, averaging $62,000 about uh per Bitcoin. At current market prices, these holdings are valued at $42 billion. So he has spent $27.7 billion and now holds with all those purchases, he now holds $42 billion, or excuse me, MicroStrategy holds $42 billion of Bitcoin. Uh, because of the very strong performance of the MicroStrategy stock, MicroStrategy was added to the Nasdaq 100 index on the 23rd. Uh so the inclusion of MicroStrategy into the index, basically driven by its Bitcoin investment, uh, it is all the all of its Bitcoin assets, uh, it it intends to attract additional investment because it is now in the league, the cool league of the NASDAQ 100. Uh and so index indices, ETFs are now also buying micro strategy. So there's a little bit of like a valuation bump when you get into the NASDAQ 100. Uh so any funds that track the Nasdaq 100 will now automatically incorporate MicroStrategy stock.

So that's kind of the big news of the week. Uh, but there's also one more uh I thought it was worth including here. Over fit 30% of Ethereum validators are signaling to raise the Ethereum Layer 1 gas. This is a tweet out of Anthony Susano. Uh and this is just uh uh how Ethereum Layer 1 gas works. Uh this is actually a number that is up to validators. Uh not the this is not a this is a number that is a parameter that can be adjusted on a per validator basis. And when a sufficient number of validators signal to increase the uh gas limit, then the Ethereum layer one gas limit does does increase. Uh and so this number has been growing steadily for a number of weeks now, number of months actually, um, to the where it is now at 30%. Uh and this is up from just 10% on December 19th. So yes, this is a week, week-long phenomenon. Uh 30% uh today, which is the 26th of December, and it's just up from 10% on December 19th. So we could be seeing some increased layer one capacity coming soon to Ethereum, which is pretty cool. All right, that is the news of the week of Christmas. Hope you guys all enjoyed. We got still the week, we got still the yearly roll-up coming up next. I'll recap the five biggest events and movements of 2024 to all get ourselves grounded and prepped for what is probably going to be a quite insane 2025. I think we all feel it. Uh, so let's go ahead and get into the sponsors that make the show possible, and then we'll be back with a yearly roll-up. And we are back with a yearly roll-up. I'm gonna start at number five, the fifth biggest thing that I think happened this year, and then we will end at number one. So, number five, what was the fifth biggest thing in my opinion? These are all of David's opinions. I'm sure other people would create a different list. Number five, May 23rd, the spot Ethereum ETFs were approved. But first, going back in time to November 15th, 2023, when BlackRock filed its initial S1 registration statement for a spot Ethereum ETF with the SEC. That was a little bit of a surprise. Oh, I think everyone in Ethereum is like, oh yeah, we're totally getting one of these. Uh ETH, when the BlackRock uh filed its S1, filed for an Ethereum ETF, uh ETH was $2,000 at the time. And post the announcement a couple weeks later, it ran all the way up to $2,500 uh two weeks later. Um, if you remember, it actually became pretty consensus in the industry that this ETF was going to get disapproved. Everyone thought that the uh Gensler campaign had it out for ETH. So the market priced in, started to price in a disapproval by the SEC. But again, if you guys remember, in a last-minute turn of events in May of 2023, uh we got an approval. We got we got an unexpected approval announcement, and ETH pumped from $3,000 to $3,800. That would unfortunately be a local high for the year, uh, as ETH would follow a broader market correction and slump all the way back down to $2,225. Pretty, pretty bad, uh, pretty bad way to celebrate, going from $3,800 down to $2,250. But nonetheless, the ETH ETFs went live on July 23rd, 2024. Uh, it saw $300 million in trading volume within their first month. And to date, the Ethereum ETFs have pulled in $2.5 billion in net aggregate inflows. Uh BlackRock has attracted $3.5 billion in inflows, Fidelity $1.5, and Bitwise at $400 million, with Grayscale experiencing $3.6 billion of outflows. And I think the the second-order effects of the Ethereum ETF are worth rehashing. ETH at the time had always had this regulatory uncertainty about its status as an asset. Was ETH a commodity? Was it a security? Nothing that the CFTC or SEC had ever officially done had given any sort of clarity to the nature of ETH the asset. But with the approval of the ETF, a huge precedent was established that ETH was in fact a commodity. But not only that, things like proof of stake, fee burn mechanisms, and decentralized protocol coordination were all given this regulatory shield, as things like EIP 1559, Ethereum's all-core dev calls were all things that apparently did not turn Ether into a security. This is important for Ethereum, of course, but it also signals green flashing lights down the market cap stack that other networks also have the same potential to become a commodity and get an ETF, even while having things like core developers and a roadmap. So I think that was probably the just not just for Ethereum, but the significance for the crypto industry as a whole is that you can be, have centralized-ish elements of your system. Coordination is some something about centralization, but you can still get an ETF. So it's starting to move the Overton window of what a crypto asset is away from a security and towards a commodity. Bitcoin really didn't set that precedent. Bitcoin is Bitcoin, but Ethereum is uh a lot more like other assets in the overall crypto market.

I would also say there there's today there's still debate as to whether this was the Biden administration frantically trying to score political points with the crypto industry or whether it was always the plan to approve the Ethereum ETF and they just wanted to hide it until the final yard line. To remember this context, uh this was when Donald Trump started heavily flirting with the crypto industry and started to receive an outpouring of donations and support from crypto. And the narrative at the time was that when there was this surprise pivot by the Biden administration, or at least the Gensler administration, to approve the Ethereum ETFs, which again, everyone in crypto thought that it was going to get denied. Um, the the narrative was that this was uh crypto and Donald Trump forcing the hand of the Democrats to turn more crypto favorable. Uh personally speaking, as time has gone on, I've actually turned more favorable to the argument that it was always the plan to approve the Ethereum ETFs, and the political game of chess that was being perceived by the crypto industry was actually more of a narrative illusion. It's just a coincidence of timing. Uh, judged by the fact that the Democrats never really followed through on any further pro-crypto stances. Uh the ETH ETF approval was the last thing that they really did for us. We got the Bitcoin ETF, we got the Ether ETF, and that was it. And the argument that the courts ultimately forced their hand, like they did in the Bitcoin ETF, and the Gensler just didn't want to fight that same fight again, I actually think is pretty strong. Uh, but that's neither here nor there. I think that's just commentary and reflection as we uh wrap up this year. So that is the fifth biggest thing that happened in 2025. The fourth biggest thing, of course, is the spot Bitcoin ETFs being approved. Uh but it once again, going back in time to June 6th, 2023, when BlackRock files the paperwork for their iShare's spot Bitcoin ETF. This was, if y'all were here, I'm sure you were, the bottom, the depths of the bear market in 2023. Bitcoin was $26,000 at the time.

And with the filing of the iShare's paperwork, saw an immediate price drop to thirty thousand dollars following the news. Uh this is when the ETF meta really stepped in because this planted a huge flag at the very depth of the ball of the bear market, that there is light at the end of the tunnel. This was insanely optimistic. It was when the times were darkest, this was the fire that kept the industry going. Just ETFs, the the BlackRock file, the ETF. They're like 351 approvals to one disapproval. The odds are in our favor, we're gonna get an ETF. Uh and so in January 10th of 2024, just uh a little over six months later, uh, the spot ETFs for Bitcoin were approved. Uh and I thought this was pretty funny. Coming from the word, uh the mouth of Gary Gensler, who had to write this statement on the SEC website justifying why he had to approve it, he said, We are now faced with a new set of filings similar to those we have disapproved in the past. Circumstances, however, have changed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that the commission failed to adequately explain its reasoning in disapproving the listing and trading of Grayscale's proposed ETP, the Grayscale Order. The court therefore vacated the Grayscale order and remanded the matter to the Commission. Based on these circumstances and those discussed more fully in the approval order, I feel the most sustainable path forward is to approve the listing and trading of these spot Bitcoin ETF shares. Though we are merit neutral, I'll note that the underlying asset in the metals ETP, like gold, has consumer and industrial uses. While in contrast, Bitcoin is primarily speculative, a volatile asset. And that's also used for illicit activity, including ransomware, money laundering, sanction evasion, and terrorist financing. Wow, we approved the listing and trading of certain spot Bitcoin ETF shares today. We do not approve or endorse Bitcoin. Investors should remain cautious about the myriad risks associated with Bitcoin and whose products and whose values tied to crypto. Thank you for the commentary, Mr. Gary Ginsler. Uh, the price of Bitcoin at the time of the approval was $46,600. Post approval.

It fell to $39,000 on January 22nd, which caused everyone to have a bunch of angst because we thought we were going to the moon. But when the ETFs actually went live and started trading on February 15th, just in time for some post-Valentine's Day romance, Bitcoin would later run straight to $73,000, breaking all-time highs on March 13th as volumes started pouring into the ETFs. Unexpectedly high volumes, massive volumes into the ETFs. They attracted the Bitcoin ETFs attracted $15 billion in net new inflows during the first quarter after approval. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have recorded over $1,500, $500 million in daily trading volume in their first month. And to date, the Bitcoin ETFs have absorbed $35 billion of Bitcoin, with BlackRock iShares holding $37 billion. And of course, Grayscale Trust now converted to an ETF lost thirty twenty one billion dollars of AUM, which bled into the other ETFs. So that's number four.

Fourth biggest thing that happened in 2024. Coming in at number three, we got Donald, the crypto president, Trump's reelection, and formal alliance with the crypto industry. I think it's kind of hard to state the magnitude of this, especially when we zoom out and remember that Bitcoin is a 15-year-old project, and we have an incoming president actively branding himself as the crypto president. The Biden administration represents probably one of the hardest possible regulatory swings against crypto, which I think many forget actually started with the OG Trump administration with Treasury Secretary Minutian's attack on self-hosted wallets. But once the Biden administration stepped in, he really turned up the regulatory oppression to eleven, giving Donald Trump the opportunity to correct course and become the pro crypto president with the help of some very key players in the crypto industry to make this happen, including David Bailey from Bitcoin Media and probably Ryan Salkis too, somehow. Here is Donald Trump at the Bitcoin conference in July, which I think is worth replaying. So let's go hear from him right now.

Hello, Bitcoiners. Thank you very much. Hello. It's good to be with you.

It's good to be with you. If crypto is going to define the future, I want to be mined, minted, and made in the USA. It's going to be. It's not going to be made anywhere else. And if Bitcoin is going to the moon, as we say, it's going to the moon. I want America to be the nation that leads the way. And that's what's going to happen.

No, you're gonna be very happy with me. Bitcoin is not threatening the dollar. The behavior of the current US government is really threatening the dollar.

So on day one, I will fire Gary Gensler and appoint a new SEC chairman.

I didn't know he was that unpopular.

Oh, that was great. Uh okay, so he made uh some pretty bold promises, pretty big promises. Uh four ones that I'll emphasize here, of course, a pro-Bitcoin agenda. Donald Trump pledged to make the United States the crypto capital of the planet and a Bitcoin superpower, emphasizing the importance of embracing crypto innovation to maintain global technology leadership. Regulatory changes, of course, as you just heard. He promised to dismiss SEC chairman Gary Gensler, a strategic Bitcoin reserve. He proposed on creating a national Bitcoin reserve utilizing utilizing seized cryptocurrencies as a strategic asset akin to the Federal Petroleum Reserve, and an advisory council. He plans to establish a Bitcoin crypto presidential advisory council to develop clear and favorable favorable regulatory guidelines within 100 days of office. Uh

I mean he's not even in office yet, but some of these things are seemingly being manifested as we speak, uh especially that advisory council, uh, with the appointments, the absolute demolishing of Chokepoint 2.0 members and being replaced by some of the most pro-crypto pro markets people possible. Uh, you gotta give him kind of a uh an early preemptive green check on the advisory council. Um regulatory changes. Well, Gary Gensler, he said he's leaving. And so in the face of Donald Trump coming in, Gary Gensler just said, I'm out. Uh so he doesn't even have to dismiss Gary Gensler anymore. So also a green check on that one.

a pro Bitcoin agenda and a strategic Bitcoin reserve. We're gonna have to actually wait for him to get into office to uh facilitate those things. But the trend uh is pretty strong.

So this is why people are saying that we are getting an incoming golden years for crypto because we have never had a pro-crypto, pro-crypto regulate regulatory administration. Uh this is a first for all of us. Crypto has either been experienc experiencing indifference, even when we need some amount of just like attention from regulators just to get clarity on things. We had indifference at best, and then over, of course, the last four years and even some of the years before that from the Biden administration, uh like absolute regulatory oppression. And it seems like the pendulum is going to swing violently from regulatory oppression to regulatory favorability as a result of uh the the uh fair shake super PAC, the donations to Donald Trump, Donald Trump realizing that these are the people that he wants to align with, uh avid supporters with a bunch of capital. These are Donald Trump's favorite things. Uh and and so as a result, when uh Bitcoin, of course, crossed $100,000, Donald Trump tweeted out on Real Truth Social Congratulations, Bitcoiners! $100,000. You're welcome. Together, we will make America great again. So that was the third largest thing that I think happened in the crypto world. Uh the second, coming in at number two, not a thing, but a movement, meme coins.

Like em or hate them, meme coins defined the year. A coin gecko report measured that meme coin dominated 31% of crypto investors' attention in 2024, a 4x growth compared to 2023, where they already had a very strong foothold. The rise of meme coins, initially driven by the dog-themed coins, of course, because we like the dogs, expanded into every new category imaginable, even attracting the attention of celebrities with both short and long-term focuses on their memes. Of course, this is the year that pump.fun became massive. And using that as a proxy for success of these tokens, nearly 5 million new meme coins were deployed on Solana alone this year, with the platform capturing $335 million in fees. Solana meme coins represent about 7.6% mine share of the meme coin, base meme coins at 2.1%, AI meme coins 1.5%, and cat themed meme coins 1.2%. And that is of the overall total investor attention categories. So that's that means like all of all crypto, all crypto investment attention categories. Solana meme coins got seven point six percent of the total attention of the entire crypto industry. Um the number one meme coin, doge.

Up 250% on the year in comparison to Bitcoin's 127%. The Sheb Inu, the number two largest meme coin by market cap, up about 100% on the year. So it's the only meme coin that underperformed Bitcoin. Pepe, up 1200%. And then Bonk, the OG Solana meme coin, actually only up 77% on the year. But really, actually, if you go to 14 months rather than 12 months, it's up 7,000%. Because about 14 months ago was when the Solana ecosystem really caught fire. And then fifth, the fifth largest meme coin, Dogwith Hat, up a modest 830% on the year. There's a lot more meme coin stuff to talk about, but I think you guys all get the gist. So we'll go ahead and move to number one. The biggest thing that happened in crypto. The number one thing.

Drum roll, please.

Bitcoin crosses $100,000. Uh on December 5th, 2024, making a historic milestone for the cryptocurrency market. $1.95 trillion market cap in just Bitcoin alone.

As a reminder, Bitcoin price is also Bitcoin fundamentals. Unlike traditional assets, where fundamentals are analyzed through cash flows, earning, tangible production metrics, Bitcoin's fundamentals are inherently tied to its network effects. Adoption, these are the things that make Bitcoin valuable as money. And when the price breaks $100,000, that is just a clear planted flag in the ground that this thing is working and it's working as intended. Price number go up. Is Bitcoin working? A rising price, of course, strengthens fundamentals. It goes backwards too. More users are drawn into the network, more security from higher mining revenues, greater institutional and individual confidence in Bitcoin. You know, we have these dollars that say in God we trust, where you know this fiat currency. What does fiat mean? Faith. Faith in the Federal Reserve, not inflating away the value of our dollar and appropriately managing that supply. Bitcoin doesn't have that. Bitcoin confidence is literally measured one-to-one by the price. And when the price is $100,000, that is $100,000 per Bitcoin's worth of investor confidence in the Bitcoin system. Also, Bitcoin price is the best marketing machine for Bitcoin. It's free marketing. $100,000 plasted everywhere across mainstream media, across the crypto industry, all of you, all the crypto friends who had normie friends telling them that they're crazy gets to go and show their $100,000 Bitcoin price. Because, you know, if you're a Bitcoin person, your friends probably know you're a Bitcoin person. And I think probably most importantly of all these things, Bitcoin bubbles.

Have popped four times, and Bitcoin has recovered and blown past previous all-time highs five times. So I think if anyone in the year 2025 says that Bitcoin is a bubble, you have permission to go tell them to stuff it. Uh they're just wrong. All right, Bankless Nation, thank you guys so much for sticking with a year of weekly roll ups. Uh we have never missed a weekly roll up, and we continue to never miss a weekly roll up. And if we're gonna do a very quick single item bankless yearly roll up, that single item would be 1,000 episodes.

Bankless Cross, 1,000 episodes not too long ago. I think this is probably episode 1003, 1004. Thank you everyone who has listened to even just some of these episodes, especially this one today that I have the you guys at your guys' ears with me right now. Some of you have listened to all 1,000 of these episodes, which is insane. And thank you especially to you. But man, the bankless nation uh really keeps me and Ryan going and the whole entire bankless team. Uh this we started the Bankless Podcast in uh January of 2020. So we are entering our fifth year of this podcast. Uh crossing a thousand episodes is pretty damn cool. Uh some of some of you guys have been with us for forever, the entire time. Uh, and some of you guys have came in 2021, and some of you guys came in 2022. Uh, and we're we're all still here. And we're gonna make podcasts, we're gonna make a thousand more podcasts. Uh, even though that sounds intimidating, uh, I'm sure the time will just fly by. We've had a ton of fun making these podcasts with you guys. So thank you for sticking with us through the very amazing, incredible, bullish year of 2024. After getting through the terrible year that was 2023, uh, and I think 2025.

Is gonna be pretty damn cool. So if anyone came in in the class of 2021, bought the top of 2021 as one does when people come into crypto,

I'm I've I've go my heart goes out to you guys because you guys earned it. You guys had some of the most crazy battle scars that the crypto industry has ever seen. Uh and I hope your net worth, crypto net worth is at all time highs. And if it's not, it will be soon. Uh so with that, as you guys know, crypto is risky. You can lose what you put in, but we are headed west. This is the frontier. It's not for everyone, but we are glad you are with us on the bank's journey. Thanks a lot. Yeah.