Who should the crypto industry thank for Thanksgiving in 2020?

Although the crypto industry waited for a sharp drop of more than $3,000 on Thanksgiving Day, 11 months have passed since 2020, and the crypto industry has still made many remarkable achievements. From Bitcoin halving to DeFi, from PayPal to MicroStrategy, these have contributed to the rise of the crypto market this year.

DeFi

Decentralized finance is the biggest surprise in the crypto industry this year. This summer, DeFi, which uses DEX, lending and liquidity mining as the troika, promoted the upward trend of the crypto market.

In 2020, the encryption industry finally found more application scenarios in the DeFi field. Although the DeFi boom has cooled down in the second half of this year, in the long run, many of these projects will have a profound impact on the encryption industry.

Bitcoin halving

In May 2020, the cryptocurrency with the highest market value will be halved as scheduled. In the next six months, due to the decrease in the supply of Bitcoin and the increase in demand, as the Bitcoin became more scarce, the price of Bitcoin also rose steadily.

Whether it is a simple economic model or a new theory of Twitter analyst PlanB, Bitcoin halving is an important theoretical cornerstone for predicting that Bitcoin prices will continue to rise.

PayPal

In 2020, PayPal announced its entry into the crypto field, providing users with crypto trading services, which has an impact on the crypto market even more than that of Libra, which Facebook is preparing to launch in 2019.

PayPal has 300 million users around the world. This will be a key step in promoting cryptocurrency to mainstream people, and it is also an important step for mainstream industries to accept cryptocurrency. Once PayPal opens up Bitcoin to its merchant network, people will feel the importance of PayPal’s move. This will further show that Bitcoin is not only a trading asset, but also a currency with its own intrinsic value.

Covid-19

The new crown epidemic is a black swan event in 2020. However, it has accelerated the speed of Bitcoin’s acceptance by the mainstream. Due to the economic stimulus and quantitative easing policies adopted by governments and central banks in response to the epidemic, the legal currencies of all countries in the world are in constant inflation.

For a time, global assets are looking for stored-value assets that can hedge against inflation, and Bitcoin, known as digital gold, has become the first choice of many people.

MicroStrategy and Square

Technology company MicroStrategy invested $425 million in Bitcoin this summer. Even after the Thanksgiving drop, this still brought the company $200 million in profits. Also investing in Bitcoin is Square, which bought $50 million in Bitcoin.

The purchase of Bitcoin by these big technology companies also reflects the mainstream industry’s recognition of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and it also drives more companies to invest in Bitcoin.

Grayscale

The industry generally believes that unlike 2017, the crypto bull market in 2020 is driven by institutional funds. Funds designed by asset management companies such as Grayscale to invest in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have reduced the barriers for institutions to enter the crypto field.

Data shows that Grayscale’s assets under management have reached US$10 billion, and it has become one of the largest bitcoin buyers in the crypto market.

Billionaires and celebrities

In 2020, more billionaires began to invest in Bitcoin, from Paul Tudor Jones to Stanley Druckenmiller, to Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego. It is their inflow of assets that has promoted the continuous expansion of the crypto market.

In 2020, more celebrities talk about Bitcoin, from Tesla’s Elon Musk, to Harry Potter novel author JK Rowling, and the role of Alia in the American TV series “Game of Thrones” Maisie Williams, regardless of whether they eventually understand or buy cryptocurrency, this has accelerated the spread of the term Bitcoin among their huge fan base.

Ethereum 2.0

As early as the beginning of 2020, Ethereum 2.0 was considered an important event in the crypto industry this year, second only to Bitcoin block reward halving. After undergoing multiple stages of testing, the mainnet of Ethereum 2.0 Phase 0 will be launched next month.

This will be the first step in the conversion of the Ethereum network from proof of work to proof of equity. If the expected expansion, growth, and fee reduction can be achieved, it will have a profound impact on the Ethereum ecosystem and the entire encryption ecosystem.