Every new year finds many people claiming it to be The Year of Bitcoin, The Year of Cryptocurrency, and so on. However, 2021 does not seem to be only these things. The year saw a massive rise in another crypto-related metric – institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies. From banks to governments to big business houses, institutions across the world opened up to cryptocurrency, with Bitcoin leading the march. 2021, as a whole, had a lot going on in the crypto market. Perhaps the biggest in one end of the spectrum would be the blanket ban on cryptocurrencies by one of the most powerful countries, China. On the positive side, Bitcoin prices reached new all-time high marks and the mining network had its all-time high hash rate. Resilience is the keyword for cryptocurrencies in 2021. Miners, investors, and traders have shown that cryptocurrency will survive even when faced with adversities.
The most impressive area of growth for cryptocurrencies has been institutional adoption. The world saw big corporations and public institutions adopting cryptocurrencies at an ever-increasing rate. The Kraken Intelligence’s 2021 Crypto-in-Review report paints a very similar picture in its assessment of the year. In 2021, major banks, including the Bank of Australia, Bank of America, and major asset management companies like JPMorgan, adopt crypto. In UAE, the government partnered with private entities to develop a hub for innovation and regulations. Many governments lessened regulatory pressure on the crypto market, and public leaders in the United States spoke openly on public forums in favor of digital assets. 2021 indeed was the year of institutional adoption of crypto.
