Play-to-earn game whose scholarship economy boomed then busted; its Ronin bridge was later hacked.

The 2021 Christie's sale of Beeple's Everydays collage that mainstreamed NFT price headlines.

A temporary Bitcoin consensus split caused by differing block-handling behavior between software versions, documented in BIP-50.

An August 2010 Bitcoin validation bug that allowed an invalidly large output total, followed by a software fix and a chain reorganization.

A high-profile lending and trading scam that collapsed in 2018 after promising impossible yields.

Theft of about 120,000 BTC from Bitfinex. Later U.S. seizures of related coins became a landmark recovery story.

Yuga Labs' ape PFPs that became the 2021 status NFT, then a symbol of NFT-winter drawdowns.

Former Alameda CEO whose testimony was central to the FTX criminal cases.

A CeFi lender that froze withdrawals in 2022 and entered bankruptcy after risky yield strategies.

Ethereum co-founder who later launched Cardano.

Theft of NEM from the Japanese exchange Coincheck, one of the largest exchange losses of that era.

A 2017 Ethereum NFT game that clogged the network and proved consumer demand for on-chain collectibles.

Larva Labs' 10,000-pixel characters on Ethereum that defined NFT profile culture and blue-chip collectible pricing.

The 1990s privacy-and-crypto mailing-list culture that influenced Bitcoin's design goals.

The rebranded Libra project under the Diem Association. Wound down after failing to win U.S. regulatory clearance; talent later seeded Aptos and related efforts.

Terraform Labs co-founder, central figure of the LUNA/UST collapse and later legal pursuit.

2021 legal-tender experiment for Bitcoin, plus government accumulation and IMF negotiation drama.

A high-profile 2017 to 2018 smart-contract project that raised a record ICO and later faded from leadership.

The chain that rejected the DAO bailout fork and kept the original Ethereum history.

The Prague-Electra Ethereum upgrade activated in May 2025, combining execution-layer and consensus-layer changes including EIP-7702 account delegation.

The November 2022 failure of FTX and Alameda, a defining custody and fraud event for the industry.

Ethereum co-founder later behind Polkadot and the Solidity language's early work.

An early Bitcoin contributor and the first known recipient of a Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi.

Early Mt. Gox and Ripple figure who later co-founded Stellar.

Facebook's 2019 proposed global stablecoin and payment network. Political backlash forced a redesign and eventual shutdown path.

The May 2022 death spiral of TerraUSD and LUNA that erased tens of billions and seeded the CeFi credit crunch.

An early dominant Bitcoin exchange that collapsed in 2014 after a massive loss of customer BTC.

Computer scientist linked to Bit Gold and smart-contract vocabulary that preceded Ethereum.

A large alleged pyramid scheme marketed as cryptocurrency education and coin, prosecuted across multiple countries.

Canadian exchange that collapsed after the CEO's death and inaccessible cold wallets, becoming a custody cautionary tale.

A 2021 BNB-chain tax-token phenomenon later hit by lawsuits and criminal cases over liquidity and disclosures.

FTX founder convicted after the 2022 collapse. Shorthand SBF for the scandal era.

The anonymous author of the Bitcoin whitepaper and the first Bitcoin software in 2008 to 2009.

A U.S. civil enforcement case filed in 2023 concerning Coinbase's securities-related activities and dismissed by agreement in February 2025.

U.S. bank active in crypto deposits that failed in the 2023 regional-bank crisis, cutting a fiat on-ramp.

The 2023 regional bank failure that hit startup and crypto firm deposits and stressed USDC confidence.

An early darknet market that used Bitcoin and shaped the crime-and-privacy narrative around crypto.

The 2016 exploit of The DAO on Ethereum that led to a controversial hard fork and Ethereum Classic.

A crypto hedge fund that blew up in 2022 after leveraged bets and contagion from Terra.

An Ethereum-based privacy protocol designated by the U.S. Treasury in 2022 and removed from its economic sanctions list in March 2025.

The Official Trump Solana memecoin launched mid-January 2025. Price spiked into the tens of billions FDV lore then crashed; trading fees accrued to affiliated entities while many late buyers lost money.

Ethereum's co-founder and the public face of Ethereum research and roadmap communication.

A major 2024 exchange breach that froze a large share of user assets and highlighted multisig and custody design risk.

A marketing and technical label for internet apps that use wallets, tokens, and user-owned state.