2022 was supposed to be the year crypto went mainstream, with a significant chunk of traditional venture capital firms betting heavily on the ecosystem in 2021. However, with one disaster after another, 2022 turned out to be a catastrophic year for the nascent crypto ecosystem. Some of the biggest names touted as pivotal to taking the crypto ecosystem forward turned out to be the orchestrators of its worst year in recent memory.

That said, quite a few protagonists rose to the occasion. These winners proved that crypto is not just about a few select individuals and companies but a vibrant ecosystem that can survive significant setbacks.

Let’s start with some of the biggest winners of the crypto ecosystem in 2022. The list includes individuals, companies and anonymous groups working for the betterment of the industry.

In a year that saw the multibillion-dollar collapses of the Terra ecosystem, FTX and Three Arrows Capital, it’s hard to pick winners. However, crypto has faced adversaries before, and 2022 was no different. Several positives came out of the year despite the collapse of several centralized entities.

When Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin (BTC), a core idea was to give people financial sovereignty that made them less dependent on centralized intermediaries.

With offers of lucrative interest rates on yield products and derivatives trading services, most crypto users preferred to keep their crypto assets on centralized exchanges. However, these lucrative offerings become a nightmare when millions of customers lose their funds in the wake of a centralized exchange collapse.

In the rubble of the FTX collapse, crypto investors lost trust in centralized exchanges. Hardware wallet providers like Ledger and Trezor have