Crypto’s busy year, in numbers

‘Tis the season to review crypto’s 2023 milestones. [Andriy Onufriyenko via Getty Images]

There’s never a dull year on the blockchain. So, to round out 2023, we took a look back at the numbers that shaped the news:

Crypto winter began to thaw. How ETF optimism fueled 2023’s rally.

Tokenization took Wall Street. Why the banking giants bet on blockchain.

NFTs bounced back. Meet the digital pet rock that scored big bucks.

S$155,813.22

S$5,490.51

S$4.23

S$1.28

S$236.00

S$1.28

See the latest prices

YEAR IN REVIEW

Tallying up the numbers behind 2023’s biggest crypto headlines

This time last December, crypto winter was in full effect and all we could do was hunker down and wait for warmer days to come. Which is why we’re so happy to wrap up 2023 on a sunnier note! In the last few months, prices have spiked as we all got more and more fired up about the prospect of the SEC finally approving one of Wall Street’s “spot” bitcoin ETF applications. (Could it really happen in January?) Meanwhile, NFTs began bouncing back, crypto had some big days in court, and the Bitcoin Whitepaper celebrated its fifteenth birthday. Happy HODL-days!

$1.66 trillion

Crypto’s total market cap as of Tuesday — a roughly 100% increase since the beginning of the year. After experiencing historically low volatility for much of 2023, prices began ramping up sharply this fall (shout out to “Uptober”!) as optimism grew that the SEC might soon approve one of Wall Street’s “spot” BTC ETF applications.

$100 billion

Estimate of how big the market for spot BTC ETFs could become, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Other estimates we saw this year ranged from $3 billion on the first day of trading to $55 billion over five years. As the chief strategy officer at ETF provider Roundhill Investments told Reuters, “the analogy that I’m looking at is to gold,” adding that the arrival of spot ETFs had been transformational for the gold market.

$2.5 billion

Amount of revenue earned by BTC miners in the fourth quarter of 2023, the highest figure since early 2022, according to Coin Metrics. One major driver? The rise of Bitcoin Ordinals, a BTC-based NFT protocol that allows developers to “inscribe” data onto the Bitcoin blockchain.

$1.8 billion

Total year-to-date inflows that have poured into digital-asset investment products (which includes funds at crypto-focused asset managers like Grayscale and Proshares), according to CoinShares. Crypto fund inflows are often viewed as a proxy for demand among institutional investors, and this fall saw an 11-week run of consecutive inflows.

$1 billion

Approximate total value locked into DeFi protocols on Solana’s blockchain, up from around $210 million at the start of the year. The Ethereum alternative had a breakout year, with prices up more than 600% to around $80 as of Wednesday.

$675 million

Estimated value of tokenized U.S. Treasuries, up from around $100 million in January. Many of the world’s largest financial institutions see the tokenization of real-world assets — including real estate, currencies, and financial instruments — as a multi trillion-dollar opportunity. As a Bernstein analyst put it this summer, “We forecast ~$5 trillion of real-world financial assets will be tokenized on blockchains over the next 5 years.”

$78 million

Amount of money raised in Q4 by the crypto community to support the election of bipartisan, pro-innovation candidates in 2024. Among the 20 companies and industry leaders contributing to the Fairshake Super PAC and its affiliates are Coinbase along with its CEO Brian Armstrong, Andreessen Horowitz, Ripple, and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

52 million

Number of Americans who own crypto, according to research by Coinbase. That's about one in five adults in the United States. This year, Coinbase announced efforts to help mobilize crypto advocates ahead of the 2024 election by making it simple to call their elected representatives.

$2.5 million

Approximate sales price for two Van Gogh paintings rendered as NFTs on the Tezos blockchain by the Musée d'Orsay in Paris as NFTs began to bounce back alongside the broader crypto market this November. And it wasn’t just NFTs of Impressionist masterpieces: An image of Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin dressed as a jester went for nearly $400,000, while an NFT pet rock sold for more than $200,000.

165%

Percentage bitcoin increased in 2023, as of Wednesday afternoon. After sinking below $16,000 last year, the leading cryptocurrency by market capitalization roared back in 2023 – and many analysts predict even bigger things for 2024. As an October report from Morgan Stanley put it, “Historically, most of bitcoin’s gains come directly after a ‘halving’ event [expected next spring] that occurs every four years.”

119%

The increase in volume of staked ETH so far this year, per a Glassnode report released Tuesday, resulting in more than 34.638 million ETH being “locked into the staking protocol.” In April, Ethereum completed its transition to a proof-of-stake consensus model with its Shapella upgrade, which gave users who staked their ETH to help secure and validate transactions on the blockchain the ability to withdraw their funds.

82%

Amount Ripple’s XRP token gained this year. XRP (which is used on the Ripple payment network) got a major boost in July when a federal court in New York ruled that XRP itself is not a security and that XRP at issue sold through exchanges were not securities transactions. In 2020, the SEC had sued Ripple, alleging that it had broken securities laws when it sold XRP. In October of this year, a judge ruled that the agency can’t appeal the decision.

Minimum number of games with blockchain elements on the Epic Games Store as of November, according to Decrypt: “While many of these games are unreleased or in early access, their listings are reflective of Epic Games’ more open approach to hosting titles with crypto or AI elements compared to rival PC game launcher Steam.”

51%

Share of millennial and Gen Z adults who say they’re likely to support pro-crypto political candidates in 2024, according to Coinbase’s latest State of Crypto report, which was released in October. We’d suggest listening to them, given that they account for 40% of the US voting-age population today and are on their way to becoming a majority by 2028.

Number of countries that, per a PwC report released this week, “engaged in myriad initiatives to develop crypto-focused regulations and legislation, from holding discussions to passing laws” in 2023. Among the 42 countries identified in the report, more than 20 of them were categorized as having passed “comprehensive crypto regulatory frameworks.”

Age of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin Whitepaper as of October 31. Next month, on January 3, Bitcoin will celebrate the 15th anniversary of the first transaction ever recorded on the network. The message inscribed in the “Genesis Block” referenced a newspaper headline about the Great Recession, a key factor in Bitcoin’s creation: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”