For me, this heading summarizes the world of 2021 fiat money. For Bitcoiner, “brrr” has long summarized the current monetary policy madness. ..
The disconnect between sanity and policy, between truth and publicity has never been greater in my life since 2021. As a result, the importance of Bitcoin was less obvious than it is now.
2021 was the biggest year ever for Bitcoin. I expect it to continue every year in the near future. It’s been a year that I once again emphasized the importance of low time preferences, zooming out and being confident, or “HODL” for short.
We started this year with a Bitcoin price of $ 29,000, soared to $ 64,000, plummeted to $ 29,000, hit a record high of $ 69,000, and returned to $ 48,000 at the time of this writing. Feelings like greed and panic have led many to lose some or all of their stacks, staying humble and teaching thousands of people the wisdom of just sitting.
Advances in Lightning Network
Bitcoin prices have risen about 70% since the beginning of the year, but that’s not the only rise. Bitcoin continues to mature as a medium of exchange through the strong growth and innovation of Lightning Network.
The number of Lightning nodes and channels has more than doubled, 15,000 To 31,000, And from about 36,000-82,000, Each. Even more impressive, the total capacity of the network has increased from less than 1,000 BTC to nearly 3,300 BTC. Bitcoin visual.. When measured in US dollars, Lightning Network has more than five times more liquidity than it did a year ago.
Thanks to Lightning Network, Bitcoin is now being used more than ever as a payment method, which is the actual medium of exchange. As an example, our Citadel 21 currently processes most of its sales with Lightning.
2021 is also the year that streaming payments via Lightning Network have become a proven, functional and implemented technology. Great Lightning applications like Breez and Sphinx facilitate real-time streaming of sat while listening to podcasts, paving the way for new ways to monetize. “Value of Value” Using Lightning as a streamlined way to authenticate yourself online has also made great strides.
Continuous growth of corporate Bitcoin finance
Gigachad Michael Saylor is once again in control of public companies that put Bitcoin into the national treasury.
MicroStrategy more than tripled its Bitcoin holdings in 2021 and is now Holds an astonishing 122,000 BTC..Tesla is still 43,000 BTC purchased at the beginning of the yearHowever, CEO Elon Musk fell out of grace among most bitcoiners after his massive. Dog sit coin shilling And contributed to Bitcoin mining FUD An unhonest statement about the environmental impact of the mining industry..
The growing legitimacy of holding Bitcoin on the balance sheet was also demonstrated by Norwegian industry and energy giant Aker buying over 1,000 btc through a new Bitcoin company. Sea tea..
Legacy financial inclusion: important but not important for Bitcoin
Coinbase created the list directly, And was listed on Nasdaq in June with an initial market capitalization of $ 85 billion. The first US Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) is also this year ProShares Bitcoin ETF It was released in October.
Many people in legacy finance probably saw these events as big developments, but personally they don’t think they are important or positive for Bitcoin. Of course, I don’t care about Bitcoin, so they aren’t negative either.
Naone
June, long-awaited protocol upgrade, Taproot, lock-in, After reaching 90% minor signaling within a difficult period. Activated on November 14th with Bitcoin Block 709,632. This means that Bitcoin has successfully completed the most important upgrades since SegWit in 2017.
In particular, Taproot will move Bitcoin from cryptographic schemes that use ECDSA digital signatures to Schnorr signatures, much faster to validate complex multisig transactions. It promises to further improve both the privacy, security, and scale of Bitcoin transactions.
“China bans Bitcoin” Meme revival
China spent 2021 creating what could prove to be one of the greatest economic and geopolitical mistakes in history.
Bitcoin hash rate was steadily risingFrom about 140 times per second of Exa Hash (EH / s) at the beginning of the year, it will reach a record high of over 180 EH / s in May. At that time, China is an undisputed global superpower of Bitcoin mining, estimated to account for about half of the world’s hash rate.
Rumors began to circulate that China would crack down on the mining industry, and in June Chinese regulators repeatedly announced a ban on the Bitcoin mining industry. Hash rates plummeted as Chinese miners shut down on a large scale.
Hash rates bottomed out in late June. Dropped to 87 EH / s.. Of course, this has provided a large purchase opportunity for those who are confident in both Bitcoin and mining hardware, where FUDster was used for everything of value.
Not surprisingly, orange pills have completely recovered both prices and hash rates since then. Bitcoiner knew!
The United States currently occupies its position as the new global power of Bitcoin mining, with hash rates expected to approach 200 EH / s by the New Year. China also banned all cryptocurrency transactions in September, but the market was paying little attention. Sadly, you may have seen the end of the “China bans Bitcoin” meme. Because I don’t know the angle to prohibit.
Bitcoin as fiat currency and bitcoin mining from volcanoes
The biggest event of the year in my book is that the nation-state has made Bitcoin legal tender. The decision of El Salvador is a milestone in history, Jack Marers’ speech in Miami Early June was one of the most powerful moments of the year for me.
In addition to making Bitcoin legal tender El salvador We are also planning to build a “Bitcoin City” by stacking soil, buying dips and mining from geothermal volcanic energy.
It is exciting to see if more countries will follow the leadership of El Salvador in 2022.
summary
2021 was a year of great progress in world totalitarianism. Freedom of speech is further reduced, freedom of movement is significantly reduced, and even physical independence is seriously threatened in online public squares.
It’s also an uncompromising, true machine, and the year when Bitcoin, the opposite and hostile of the clown world, celebrated its greatest year in history. It is stronger, more capable, more decentralized, and deeply rooted in the collective consciousness than ever before.
Despite several bumps on the road, Bitcoin once again proved its position as a number-up technology in 2021. But just as important, its strength and promise as a clown-go-away technology has become clearer and needed more than ever. The world needs Bitcoin. And there are Bitcoins in the world. I have hope!
This is a guest post by Hodlnaut.The opinions expressed are completely unique and are not necessarily BTC Inc or Bitcoin magazine..
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