In another rollercoaster year for crypto, 2024 delivered monumental wins for Bitcoin hodlers, crypto ETF issuers and memecoin creators, particularly as Bitcoin soared past the $100,000 milestone in December.
But not all was rosy. Scams and hacks cost victims $2.2 billion this year, and failed celebrity memecoin ventures drew the ire of disgruntled investors and their class-action lawyers.
Here are some of crypto’s biggest winners and losers of 2024.
Winners — Bitcoin hodlers
Bitcoin crossed over the $100,000 psychological milestone on Dec. 5. Driven by the hundreds of pro-crypto candidates who won seats in Congress and hopes for the most pro-crypto US government in histor. Bitcoin continued to climb afterwards peaking at $108,000 on Dec. 17, but has since fallen towards the end of the year.
As of Dec. 27, CryptoQuant data shows 87% of Bitcoin holders are still in profit at a price of around $96,000.
Most of the Bitcoin supply is in profit right now. Source: CryptoQuant
Michael Saylor’s software company, MicroStrategy, is among the more high profile groups to significantly benefit from its holdings. According to the Saylor tracker, the firm’s stash of Bitcoin (BTC) is worth $42 billion as of Dec. 27.
In 2021, El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender and bought about 200 coins. The country has since increased its holdings to 5,942 Bitcoin, worth $576 million at current prices.
Several other firms followed MicroStrategy’s lead and adopted Bitcoin as part of their treasuries as well.
On Dec. 23, Japanese investment firm Metaplanet scooped up another 620 Bitcoin, increasing its holdings to 1,762, worth about $169 million. Its stock price jumped 5% following the announcement, according to Google Finance.
Meanwhile, on Nov. 25, YouTube alternative Rumble confirmed plans to add Bitcoin to its balance sheet, with its shares spiking 12.63% soon after to $7.31, according to Google Finance.
US crypto ETFs issuers
On Jan. 10, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the 19b-4 applications from asset managers for US Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
According to K33 Research, Bitcoin ETFs surpassed gold funds for the first time on Dec. 16, collectively breaking $129 billion in assets under management (AUM).
Source: Vetle Lund
The figure included spot Bitcoin ETFs and ETFs that track Bitcoin’s performance using financial derivatives, such as futures.
Memecoins
Memecoins saw another significant pump in 2024, becoming some of the year’s best performers.
The memecoin market cap currently stands at $104 billion, led by Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) at $45 billion and $12 billion, CoinGecko data shows. Year to date, the Solana-based Dogwifhat (WIF) meme token rallied over 879%. Pepe (PEPE) is also up 1,205%.
Solana memecoin launchpad Pump.fun was responsible for a huge flood of memecoins throughout the year. According to Dune, the platform’s total revenue is over $325 million despite 98.6% of memecoins failing to even launch.
Crypto lawyers
Just like previous years, 2024 has been marked by crypto litigation and ongoing bankruptcies.
The SEC was at the center of a few hundred lawsuits against crypto firms, with its Nov. 22 annual report showing $8.2 billion in financial remedies for the year ending Sept. 30. The number of cases declined 26% from the previous year to 583.
Regardless of the outcome, crypto lawyers have always come out on top. An August report from Bloomberg Law found that law firms working on Chapter 11 crypto bankruptcies alone reportedly requested and received fees totaling $751 million.
There were ten law firms in particular that made some decent coin defending crypto firms this year. Source: Bloomberg Law
In 2023, lawyers, accountants, consultants, analysts and other professionals collected at least $700 million in payments from the bankruptcies of major crypto firms.
Losers — Scam, hack and exploit victims
Scammers were out in force throughout 2024. In a Dec. 19 blog, blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis said total losses from scams, hacks and exploits hit $2.2 billion this year across 303 incidents.
This represented an increase of 21% compared to 2023, which saw $1.8 billion in losses over 282 incidents. Three of the more prominent incidents together made up $825 million stolen this year alone.
In May, malicious actors suspected by the FBI to be affiliated with North Korea stole over $300 million from the Japanese crypto exchange DMM through social engineering directed at company employees, making it the biggest heist of 2024.
Months before, decentralized finance (DeFi) and gaming platform PlayDapp had $290 million in its PLA tokens drained by hackers who later ignored a $1 million bounty to return them.
Rounding out the three is one of India’s largest crypto exchanges, WazirX, which had $235 million looted from its vaults in June.
Celebrities jumping on the crypto bandwagon
In past cycles, some celebrities shilled crypto projects or launched non-fungible tokens (NFT) collections to ride the hype, and this cycle has been no different, with some even landing themselves a proposed class action lawsuit over their controversial token launches this year.
Related: Crypto entrepreneurs: Top winners and losers of 2023
One of the more recent examples, Haliey Welch, known as the Hawk Tuah girl, launched a memecoin Hawk Tuah (HAWK) on Dec. 4. The token briefly pumped to a peak market cap of $490 million and then dumped rapidly to $41.7 million. Allegations of snipers and insider wallet selling have persisted ever since.
Investors filed a lawsuit against several entities involved in the launch of the coin on Dec. 19, alleging they promoted and sold an unregistered securities offering.
After a few weeks of radio silence, in a Dec. 20 X post, Welch said she was “fully cooperating” with lawyers.
Bitcoin paper hands and nocoiners
While there were diehard hodlers, there were also those that sold too early or didn’t jump in at all.
Germany sold nearly 50,000 Bitcoin seized from movie piracy website, movie2k starting July 12, making a haul of roughly $2.8 billion when Bitcoin was around $57,000— which already garnered plenty of head-shaking from Bitcoiners.
According to CoinGecko, Germany’s 50,000 Bitcoin would be worth around $4.7 billion at current prices.
The US also received criticism from crypto industry executives and observers after it sent 19,800 Bitcoin of its stash from shutting down the online Silk Road black market in 2013, worth $1.9 billion, to crypto exchange Coinbase on Dec. 2.
The US government’s known addresses still hold a significant amount of crypto. Source: Spot On Chain
According to Spot on Chain, the US government still holds about 183,850 Bitcoin worth around $17.7 billion across various known addresses.
Crypto criminals
On March 28, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his conviction on seven felony charges.
Plenty of hackers faced the brunt of the law as well, such as Ilya Lichtenstein, the hacker who stole Bitcoin from the crypto exchange Bitfinex in 2016.
US regulators also received over $19 billion in lawsuit settlements from crypto companies in 2024, up 78% more than in 2023, which only saw $10.87 billion paid.
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