Summary

2020 can be said to be an extremely extraordinary year. With the huge impact it has had on us, 2020 will definitely go down in history as one of the busiest years in the crypto space.

Of course, it’s often hard to remember what you had for breakfast this morning, let alone with all the hectic times that have happened throughout the year What? Don’t worry, we will collect for you in this article the most important crypto events that happened this year!

The "Black Thursday" crash caused by the new crown epidemic

The global spread of the new coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown are undoubtedly the most significant events of 2020. As a result of this black swan event, almost every financial market in the world has experienced unprecedented volatility and unusual market crashes.

Although Bitcoin was relatively good in the period before this, its inevitable decline on March 12, 2020 , this day is a nightmare for most cryptocurrency HODLers.

Bitcoin fell by 50% in a single day due to complete panic in financial markets.

Bitcoin’s collapse trend under the impact of the new coronavirus epidemic.

The good news is that just nine months later, Bitcoin has reached an all-time high! The cryptocurrency market in 2020 has forged a group of real survivors.

Bitcoin Halving Event in 2020

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Bitcoin halving may be the most unexpected event of 2020, shocking almost the entire cryptocurrency world. The Bitcoin halving is a known event that occurs every 210,000 blocks, with a cycle of approximately four years.

As part of the Bitcoin issuance schedule, miners are rewarded each time a new block is produced. The Bitcoin halving is when the rewards earned by miners are cut in half. If you want to know more about how the process works, check out our Bitcoin mining overview.

Bitcoin halving is not only a well-known event, but also a great celebration of Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention and ingenious design of Bitcoin. The most recent Bitcoin halving occurred on May 11, 2020. Since then, the reward miners received per block has increased from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC.

So, when will the next Bitcoin halving be? Just ahead! Welcome to our Bitcoin halving countdown. Bitcoin Halving in 2024!

Let’s farm in “DeFi Summer”!

It can be said that decentralized finance (DeFi) has attracted widespread attention in 2020. Nowadays, many people also call the summer of 2020 “DeFi Summer”.

Some people attribute the beginning of this Defi boom to the liquidity mining of compound interest finance. Just a few weeks later, Yield Farm was born! In the summer of 2020, we can see many phenomena in DeFi, such as endless farming, tokens named after food are constantly forking, crazy access to certain functions in the MetaMask wallet, and many Exploits and deception tools.

But despite its odd appearance, DeFi is clearly here to stay. Automated market makers (AMMs) like Uniswap and Curve print hundreds of millions of dollars in trading volume every day. Check out the surge in DEX numbers this year.

Meanwhile, decentralized lending like Aave and Compound The protocol has billions of dollars locked up in contracts, and yield makers like Yearn are working on new liquidity mining.

As one of the rapidly changing fields of encryption technology, DeFi will undoubtedly have a bright future in 2021 and beyond.

Bitcoin’s institutional entry

I wonder if you have noticed that “institutional admission” has become a reality this year!

Bitcoin’s share of listed companies’ asset allocations has soared. As of December 2020, one company alone, MicroStrategy, had purchased 70,000 BTC worth over $1.8 billion. Under this trend, Bitcoin has the potential to become a legitimate macro asset, and large institutions can allocate part of their funds to this asset. This trend will continue.

By the way, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor also reads Binance Academy frequently! Don't believe it? Check out his interview with Binance CEO CZ.

➟ Go to Binance to buy Bitcoin and start your cryptocurrency journey!

Release of Ethereum 2.0

Ethereum 2.0 has been released for a long time. This is a series of upgrades to the leading smart contract platform expected to be launched in the next few years. Most notably, these include an upgrade switch from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS), sharding, and many other upgrades to improve the network’s scalability.

This upgrade is being rolled out in multiple phases. Phase 0, the release of the beacon chain, and staking started this year. As of December 2020, more than $1 billion worth of ETH has been locked in the Eth2 deposit contract, which shows the huge interest among users in staking Eth2.

If you decide to stake ETH and are not concerned about the specific technical details, please visit Binance's ETH2.0 staking service.

With the upcoming Eth2 upgrade, layer 2 solutions (such as Optimistic rollup) and EIP-1559 (for the current gas system undergoes a major upgrade), Ethereum will continue to move forward.

Bitcoin hits new all-time high (ATH)

Despite the impact of the novel coronavirus on the world It’s a huge hazard, but it’s no secret that it could accelerate the spread of encryption. Public interest in economic policy, the idea of sound money, and remote working has increased dramatically, and our economic activity continues to shift into the digital realm. These processes had been developing for some time before, but in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to accelerate.

The trends described above have greatly strengthened the need for Bitcoin to be used as a store of value, digital gold, or simply cash. No matter where we attribute the price action, Bitcoin broke its previous all-time high on November 30, 2020. Then, after a brief pullback, it exceeded this level and without even taking a breath, continued to rise thousands of dollars further.

Where will the next market high be? People are constantly speculating, but we can be sure that Bitcoin will enter a new stage of development in 2021.

Summary

Well, there were many other events in 2020, and we may not have recounted them all. In short, 2020 has passed with its ups and downs. I hope all of us can be more relaxed in 2021! We will always be here to create the future of value transfer on the Internet.

We are glad that you supported Binance Academy in 2020, and we look forward to meeting a better you in 2021!

➟ Any other questions? Come to Ask Academy to learn more!