The year 2024 was indeed a stellar year for the crypto community. Despite major twists and turns, the year witnessed several extraordinary achievements. A notable example would be Bitcoin, which was hovering around $45K at the start of the year but later doubled in value towards the end of 2024.
Arousing investor interest in the digital asset sector, several top global economies started a new race to invest in crypto, following which several key events took place. With the start of 2025, let’s rejuvenate our heart with nostalgic memories by having a walk through over the past year.
January
The month began with market observers waiting for the fourth Bitcoin Halving. While the traders and miners were focused on the dynamics of Bitcoin and other coins, the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was under pressure. After a great legal saga, the chair of SEC, Gary Gensler, who is now removed, gave the green nod for spot Bitcoin ETF. This marked a major milestone for the vision of Satoshi Nakamoto, as his idea became an investment vehicle and paved the way for institutional adoption.
Alongside this, the XRP’s legal tangle with the SEC was picking up heat while the US election campaigns commenced. Towards the end of the month, the market faced turmoil.
February
While February is the shortest month in a year, it gave big surprises. Beginning with Bitcoin, it made the crypto reach a value of $60k. If we went a little deeper, we can remember that, at that time, the ATH of Bitcoin was $66k. For many traders, this could have given them hope after the crypto market crash of 2022. The rise of Bitcoin provoked many other tokens to surge. Ethereum took a lift from the $2,300 level to the $3.2k level. XRP, Solana, Aptos, Immutable and many other altcoins started their rally. During this period, the social platforms were abuzz with talks on altseason, Bitcoin halving and SEC’s legal pressures. Meanwhile, the Bitcoin ETF were getting inflows and from the early days of the launch, BlackRock started to lead the market.
March
In the month of March, meme coins and AI tokens took the lead in the market. Parallely, several lawsuits were prevalent, including Do Kwon’s case, SBF’s case, Coinbase and Ripple’s case with the SEC. Around that same time, a turn around event happened in the Ethereum network. The much awaited Dencun upgrade took place successfully.
While the planned events were taking place, the price of Bitcoin caught fire and hit $72k. This was an epic moment for the crypto community, bringing the Q1 of 2024 to a remarkable end.
April
Right from the beginning of April, the Bitcoin Halving event and the projections for BTC were the most spoken topics. The 4th Bitcoin halving happened and the miners community entered a new phase. In the same month another major development occurred in the Bitcoin network, which was the Runes protocol update. This enhanced the creation and management of fundamental tokens in the Bitcoin network.
We all know that the adoption of BTC and the ETF fund approval gave a new hope to the crypto industry. This contributed to more and more developments across the NFT, DeFi, Metaverse, RWA and other sectors that use digital assets. In order to advance decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) and develop artificial general intelligence the ASI alliance was created.
May
Towards the middle of the year, the crypto market was busy with on-chain activities and whale activities. The US DOJ was busy handling cases and the crypto community remained engaged.
Yet, with May, the US elections became a hot topic. Trump started accepting Bitcoin for campaign donations and became the first candidate to do it.
However, a sad event awaited the meme coins market. On May 24, Kabosu, the famous Japanese shiba inu dog behind the viral “doge” internet meme passed away, shocking its fans worldwide. The meme coin which was known for its funny and quirky nature, left a void for many in the crypto space.
June
When many nations, firms and individuals started to realize the value of Bitcoin, the German government took an opposite route. They did a massive sell-off of Bitcoins, which slumped its price. This action instigated the market and demonstrated how the institutional liquidation would contribute to the volatility of the market. On the other hand, the ETF market was moving in a positive direction.
July
With the onset of Q3, another major transfer was witnessed from the US and the German government. However, the month had many positive developments that rejoiced the investors, notably, the approval of Ether ETF and XRP being declared as non-security. These events proved the power of the crypto community and its growing significance in the economy.
Around the same time, Kamal Harris announced her entry into the US presidential election, while Trump vocally advocated for crypto in his election campaigns, becoming an overnight star among the crypto community.
August
The month of August had many hopes for Bitcoin and the crypto market. Companies like Marathon Digital Holdings and Semler Scientific increased their Bitcoin holdings. Michael Saylor, the sturdy advocate of BTC made a purchase during the start of the month itself, while Trump revealed his plans to address the U.S. $35 trillion debt crisis through Bitcoin.
Further, the collapsed crypto exchange Mt. Gox, initiated its repayment by distributing billions in Bitcoin and Bitcoin cash. Towards the end of the month, the arrest of tech tycoon Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram and Toncoin, sent shock waves across the market, dipping the price of TON.
September
The Federal Reserve made a stunt in September by cutting interest rates by 50 basis points, marking its first reduction in four years, which greatly influenced the market. During that time, Jerome Powel’s decision contributed to the bullish vibes in the market.
Before the close of Q3, Bitcoin rose to $69k and made the community to speculate on another ATH. Overall, that quarter exhibited a mixed performance.
The digital asset sector faced challenges, with most indices posting negative returns. The Ethereum Benchmark Rate dropped by 24.24%, while DeFi saw a decline of 20.34%. Broad indices like Digital Assets 5 and 10 fell by 5.39% and 5.75%, respectively. Bitcoin managed a modest gain of 2.43%, while meme coins surprisingly outperformed with a 4.30% return, indicating pockets of resilience amidst broader declines
October
With the onset of the final quarter, the crypto world witnessed a shift in market sentiment. After maintaining silence for two months, Kamala Harris spoke about the importance of regulatory clarity for crypto as Trump gained support from the crypto community. Elon Musk, in support to Trump, donated over $250 million, primarily through his America PAC, which received $238 million. Notably, he donated $20.5 million to the RBG PAC on October 24.
Usually, this month is called Uptober, and true to the phrase, the market witnessed significant rally from several altcoins. Further, in October 2024, Bitcoin experienced a 14.2% increase, rising from $63,327 to $72,300 by the month’s end.
November
The month marked a crucial moment for the crypto industry as well as the US. Trump gave a speech at Nashville on November 1st, which was just a few days before the elections. Though US was just another country in the globe, its influence greatly influenced the crypto space, owing to the promises made by Trump during his campaigns.
Following this, Donald Trump was elected as the next President of the USA. Many recalled that one of Trump’s promises was to fire Gary Gensler on the first day of his office. While the community awaited the announcement, Gary resigned. On the other hand, the Federal Reserve made another cut of 25 basis points, and many altcoins and meme coins started to breakout, which initiated the surge of PNUT. Also, BNB, BONK, and SOL witnessed their ALTs.
With the ongoing bullish sentiment ignited by Trump’s victory, BTC started to rise and marched forward towards its $100k mark. But, at the close of the month, it touched $98k.
December
With the year drawing to a close, the crypto world witnessed a golden moment with Bitcoin hitting the $100K milestone and moving to $108K. It was during then all the long term holders, short term holders and retail traders made huge profits as well as massive liquidation due to consolidation.
With the coin at its peak, many countries including the US announced the creation of a Bitcoin strategic reserve fund. With Gensler out of the picture, Trump announced Paul Atkins as the new chair of the SEC. Trump further created a new post called ‘crypto czar’ in the Whitehouse and appointed David Sacks as its head.
Final Words
The year 2024 started with the ETF approval and now several major economic countries are joining the race. Like always, the crypto market always has two sides. While the Bitcoin breached its long standing milestone, several critics argue over its potential. Moreover, despite being urged to use Bitcoin to gain profits, Microsoft refused to include it in their reserves.
With the new year, the crypto market is speculated to be more crucial as many hope that BTC will hit $150k. Apart from that, major developments can be seen in the NFT, gaming and metaverse sector. The arrival of AI speeded up the process of crypto adoption and in the near future, stablecoins will be normalized like fiat currencies.
