Crypto had a volatile year with plummeting prices and exchanges collapsing. What's next?
What is Crypto's future after a turbulent 2022?
Crypto industry has been full of 'Ponzi schemes': Palantir co-founder
Crypto and Web3 have unrealized potential, but the lack of regulation over the years has led to speculative bubbles and Ponzi schemes, Joe Lonsdale says.
The crypto ecosystem saw a turbulent 2022 with the price of Bitcoin plummeting, non-fungible token sales faltering and several large crypto companies collapsing, but one investor told Fox News the technology fueling the crypto ecosystem has untapped potential.
"There's still a clear use case for decentralization and crypto," investor and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale told Fox News earlier in December. "This ecosystem, long term, I think you will have some of this stuff emerge as useful for the world."
WATCH PALANTIR CO-FOUNDER PREDICT THE FUTURE OF CRYPTO EXCHANGES:
Crypto industry has been full of 'Ponzi schemes': Palantir co-founder
Crypto and Web3 have unrealized potential, but the lack of regulation over the years has led to speculative bubbles and Ponzi schemes, Joe Lonsdale says.
WATCH MORE FOX NEWS DIGITAL ORIGINALS HERE
Despite Lonsdale's optimism, Bitcoin, the most widely circulated cryptocurrency, started the year worth nearly $48,000 per coin, but has plummeted down to around $17,000 — about a 65% drop since January. And almost all major cryptocurrencies are down over 50% year-over-year in 2022, according to Fox Business data.
Investor Joe Lonsdale said blockchain technology still has many clear uses despite the volatile year for crypto. (Fox News Digital / Jon Michael Raasch / Fox News)
Transactions of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — digital assets like images or collectibles stored on blockchain — totaled over $17.2 billion in January 2022. NFT transactions fell to $414 million in November 2022 — a 98% decrease, according to Dune Analytics.
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Lonsdale said previously many crypto companies that have failed this year have collapsed due having "a lot of corruption."
FTX, once one of the largest companies in crypto, filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11. The founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was extradited from the Bahamas to the United States on Dec. 22 to face multiple charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Southern District of New York.
The Founder and former CEO of crypto currency exchange FTX Sam Bankman-Fried leaves the Magistrate Court building in Nassau, Bahamas December 19, 2022. (Reuters / Reuters Photos)
In the wake of the FTX collapse, another large crypto exchange, Binance, which processes more crypto transactions than all of its competitors combined, has faced scrutiny over its transparency.
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"Bitcoin has done a lot of good in the world," Lonsdale said previously. "It's helped people get money out of Russia, out of Venezuela, out of China. It allows more kind of liberty for the financial system from really bad-acting governments."
"So long term, there's a good part of crypto, but most of what we saw in crypto the last three, four, five years was a speculative bubble," he continued.
To watch Lonsdale's full interview on the future of crypto, click here.