The Boom and Bust (2021–2023): NFTs, El Salvador, FTX, Banking Crisis

What you'll learn

• 2021: The Most Spectacular Bull Market
• 2022: The Year Everything Broke
• 2023: Recovery and Banking Crisis
• For Deeper Reading

Key terms

Coinbase IPO (April 14, 2021)

Direct listing on NASDAQ ($COIN). Opening price $381; initial valuation $86 billion. Took place same day BTC peaked at $64,895.

Beeple "Everydays" sale

Mike Winkelmann's 5,000-image composite sold at Christie's March 11, 2021 for $69,346,250 to Vignesh Sundaresan (MetaKovan). First major NFT auction.

BAYC (Bored Ape Yacht Club)

Yuga Labs' 10,000-NFT collection minted April 23, 2021 at 0.08 ETH each. Sold out in 12 hours. Founders: Greg Solano, Wylie Aronow, Kerem Atalay, Zeshan Ali.

Dogecoin ATH

May 8, 2021 ($0.7376). DOGE had started 2021 around $0.005 (~14,000% gain), driven by Elon Musk's SNL hosting and broader memecoin mania.

El Salvador Bitcoin Law

Passed June 9, 2021; effective September 7, 2021. First country to make BTC legal tender. Chivo wallet launched. Adoption rates declined yearly: 25.7% (2021) → 8.1% (2024).

ConstitutionDAO

Crowd-funded effort that raised $47M in ETH from ~17,000 contributors in one week (Nov 11-18, 2021) to bid on US Constitution. Lost to Ken Griffin's $43.17M bid.

Terra/UST collapse

May 7-12, 2022 algorithmic stablecoin failure. UST depegged; LUNA expanded from 342M tokens to 6.5T tokens; $40-60B wiped. Do Kwon arrested March 2023; sentenced 15-25 years.

FTX collapse

November 11, 2022 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. ~$8B+ customer funds missing. Sam Bankman-Fried arrested December 12, 2022; convicted November 2, 2023; sentenced 25 years March 28, 2024.

The Merge

Ethereum's transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake on September 15, 2022. Energy consumption dropped ~99.95%. One of the largest live software upgrades in computing history.

Silicon Valley Bank failure

March 10, 2023. ~$209B in assets. Second-largest US bank failure. Circle had $3.3B trapped, causing USDC to briefly depeg to $0.87.

Binance/CZ settlement

November 21, 2023: $4.3B settlement with US DOJ. CZ stepped down as CEO and pled guilty. Largest crypto-related corporate enforcement action.

Bitcoin Ordinals

Method of inscribing data on individual satoshis (introduced by Casey Rodarmor in January 2023). Drove Bitcoin transaction counts to record highs through 2023-2024.