Decentral Block Post

Crypto Twitter has blown up over the shocking news of Sam Bankman-Fried’s arrest in The Bahamas — many of whom weren’t expecting it to happen so soon. 

On Dec. 12, the disgraced FTX founder was arrested by the Royal Bahamas Police after receiving notification from the United States government that criminal charges has been filed against him.

Within hours, politicians, crypto executives and influencers all booted up their Twitter apps to comment on the arrest of the FTX’s former CEO.

New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who’s held a fairly neutral view on the crypto industry to date, told her 13.4 million Twitter followers that Bankman-Fried’s was a step in the right direction towards “justice being served,” but noted that the arrest would likely postpone Bankman-Fried’s testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, which was scheduled for Dec. 13.

U.S. Senator and sponsor of the Lummis-Gillibrand Crypto Bill, Cynthia Lummis was also pleased to hear the news, stating on Twitter that the prosecutors made the right decision to hold Bankman-Fried accountable for the “good, old-fashioned fraud” he allegedly committed.

Around 13% of the American population — or 43 million people — have held cryptocurrency at some point in their lives, new research from JPMorgan Chase has revealed.

According to a Dec. 13 report titled: "The Dynamics and Demographics of U.S. Household Crypto-Asset Use,” this number has risen dramatically since before 2020 when the figure was only around 3%.

The latest data from JPMorgan comes from analyzing checking account transfers from a sample of over 5 million customers. It found that 600,000 customers in this sample group transferred cash to crypto accounts at some point during the 2020-2022 time period.

The study also noted that cryptocurrency holders typically made their first crypto purchases during spikes in crypto prices. During this time, the amount of cash being sent into crypto exchange accounts typically far outweigh the cash being removed. In other words, most people were holding onto their crypto during this time period.

This changed in early 2022 as crypto prices fell according to JPMorgan. In recent months, cash transfers into crypto exchanges have only slightly exceeded cash transfers out of them.

2022 was a near-unprecedented year of extremes and black swan events for the crypto market, and now that the year is about to wrap up, analysts are reflecting on the lessons learned and attempting to identify the trends which may point to bullish price action in 2023. 

The collapse of Terra Luna, Three Arrows Capital and FTX created a credit crunch, a severe reduction in capital inflows and an increased threat that additional major centralized exchanges could collapse.

Despite the severity of the market downturn, a few positives have emerged. Data shows long-term hodlers and smaller-sized wallets are actively accumulating during this period of low volatility.

While the market continues to see red, positives are emerging.

Let’s dive in on the positive and negative data points.