The Biggest Crypto Moments of 2024: From Bitcoin Halving to Election of President Trump

The world of cryptocurrency never fails to surprise, and 2024 has been no exception. From groundbreaking technological advancements to pivotal regulatory shifts and market-defining events, the crypto landscape has seen it all this year.

The year 2024 has been a pivotal one for the cryptocurrency industry, with several key moments shaping the narrative and impacting the market. From regulatory shifts and technological advancements to market-defining events, here are the top moments that stood out this year.

1) Approval of Bitcoin ETFs (January 11)

2) The 4th Bitcoin Halving (April 20)

3) Approval of ETH ETFs (May 23)

4) Election of President Trump (November 6)

5) Nigeria, South Africa Approve Crypto Exchanges (August 29)

1) Approval of Bitcoin ETFs (January 11)

The year began amid growing expectations that the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission would approve the listing of Bitcoin spot Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) after years of resistance.

The announcement finally came on January 11 2024, but not after some drama. Hours ahead of the announcement, the SEC released a tweet declaring the ETFs approved, only for Chairman, Gary Gensler, to claim the organization’s X (Twitter) account had been hacked.

When the approval was announced, it came via a notice by SEC Secretary, Vanessa Countryman.

“While we approved the listing and trading of certain spot Bitcoin ETP shares today, we did not approve or endorse Bitcoin. Investors should remain cautious about the myriad risks associated with Bitcoin and products whose value is tied to crypto,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler in a statement.

Below are the 11 approved Bitcoin ETF products:

As of December 27 2024, the cumulative net inflow of funds into the products is $35.66 billion, according to SoSo value. Altogether the ETFs hold $106.8 billion in total net assets, which equates to 5.70% of the Bitcoin market cap.

2) The 4th Bitcoin Halving (April 20)

Bitcoin’s 4th halving event was the second biggest moment in crypto in 2024.

The halvings are designed to happen automatically every 210,000 blocks, which translates to approximately every four years. When a halving occurs, miners see a 50% reduction in the number of bitcoins they receive as a reward for mining and adding blocks to the blockchain.

Bitcoin had experienced three halving events before:

On the same day, Bitcoin witnessed more innovation with the introduction of Runes protocol, a second standard used for creating NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Introduced by Casey Rodarmor, the founder of the Ordinal Protocol, Runes proposes a new token standard that simplifies the process of creating fungible (replaceable by an identical item) tokens that can be used and managed on the Bitcoin network.

Prior to that, ordinal inscriptions based on the Ordinal Protocol, had become popular among some Bitcoin users with Yuga Labs revealing in March that they made over $16 million (735.7 bitcoin) from the auction of 300 bitcoin NFTs.

3) Approval of ETH ETFs (May 23)

The United States Securities Exchange Commission granted accelerated approval to stock exchanges to list and trade shares of Ether ETFs late on May 23 2024 (American time).

The announcement set the stage for the listing of Ether ETF products by applicant institutions, most of whom had a few months earlier launched Bitcoin ETFs.

The institutional products include the following:

As of December 27 2024, the cumulative net inflow of funds into the products is $2.68 billion, according to SoSo value. The ETFs hold $12.11 billion in total net assets, which equates to 3.01% of the Ether market cap.

4) Election of President Trump (November 6)

The impending victory of Republic candidate President-Elect Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election held on November 5 2024 represented one of the biggest moments for crypto this year for the hope and enthusiasm it elicited among crypto adherents in the U.S, and across the world.

Bitcoin rose above $75,000 on November 6 2024 when it became clear that Trump was going to defeat Democrat candidate Vice President, Kamala Harris, kick-starting a series of new ATHs for Bitcoin ahead of its current ATH of $108,135 achieved on December 17 2024.

DogeCoin, the popular meme cryptocurrency related to Trump supporter, Elon Musk, recorded the highest increase on the day, surging nearly 20%.

The biggest milestone came exactly a month later when the leading cryptocurrency finally crossed $100,000.

Trump has said that crypto is essential to his vision of America in the future and pledged to ensure that the U.S. government never sells off its Bitcoin holdings and creates a Bitcoin