The year 2024 ended with a bang as the world’s most prominent cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, tipped the scales in a landmark price hike to more than $100,000. Still, that was only the end of the year.
Over the past 12 months, the crypto and decentralized space saw it all: spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) approvals, which led to the introduction of additional crypto-related ETFs, arrests and allegations, regulations, halving, elections, hamsters and more!
There’s no one better to look back and dissect all of that than the people on the frontlines bringing those stories into view. In this latest episode of Decentralize with Cointelegraph, the editorial team sits down to do just that.
Savannah Fortis, EU reporter and head of podcasts, was joined by Gareth Jenkinson, Cointelegraph managing editor and head of multimedia; Zoltan Vardai, breaking news reporter on the EU news team; and Turner Wright, senior policy reporter on the US news team, to look back on last year and forward to 2025.
ETFs, 100,000, regulations — oh my!
Without a doubt, 2024 started off with a landmark approval of the spot Bitcoin ETFs on Jan. 10.
The team unanimously felt this event set the stage for almost everything that followed, including the historical Bitcoin price spike.
Jenkinson said that while memecoins caused a lot of buzz throughout the industry (for better or worse), for him it was Bitcoin that was the star of the year.
“For me, 2024 was like, you know, Bitcoin summer, like DeFi summer many, many years ago already. It was Bitcoin summer, you know, finally, everyone was talking about Bitcoin again. We got $100,000, the amount of people that are investing in it, the moves that Michael Saylor has made — it’s nice to see that come to fruition after all these years. And a lot of people’s convictions about Bitcoin being paid off in such a way. It’s really cool.”
Related: US crypto execs express hope for regulatory clarity in 2025
Vardai echoed the sentiment, saying he’s been in the space since 2017 and “it’s crazy that today we’re having news about whales buying hundreds of millions or 50 million.”
“We’ve gone to the point where it doesn’t even really move the market. It’s just gotten to be day-to-day business.”
Looking ahead to 2025
The team also set their sights on the New Year and what’s in store for the industry in 2025.
Sentiments are high for the forthcoming year and expectations include more widespread recognition, artificial intelligence agents and the potential comeback of non-fungible tokens.
Make sure you tune in to hear all of the insights!
Listen to the full episode of Decentralize with Cointelegraph on Cointelegraph’s podcast page, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or your podcast platform of choice. And don’t forget to check out Cointelegraph’s full lineup of other shows!
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