The Good Tech Companies - 5 Events That Changed Crypto Forever - and How They’re Affecting Us Now

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/5-events-that-changed-crypto-forever-and-how-theyre-affecting-us-now. From bold experiments to big market shifts, these moments changed how the world sees and uses crypto. Let's explore them! Check more stories related to web3 at: https://hackernoon.com/c/web3. You can also check exclusive content about #obyte, #crypto-events, #terra-luna, #the-dao-incident, #defi, #crypto-etf, #bitcoin-legal-in-el-salvador, #good-company, and more. This story was written by: @obyte. Learn more about this writer by checking @obyte's about page, and for more stories, please visit hackernoon.com. The DAO hack in June 2016 was a huge scandal for the Ethereum network. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) referenced this event when explaining how the Howey Test applies to crypto assets. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) was born around 2017, bringing several neat events for crypto.

This audio is presented by Hacker Noon, where anyone can learn anything about any technology. Five events that changed crypto forever, and how they're affecting us now. By Obite, as much as any other industry, crypto hasn't grown in a smooth line upwards. Bitcoin was born, barely learned to walk, and then stumbled into several precipices. Community and regulators drew several lessons from those experiences, moved forward, and some shiny things appeared along the way, too. Over the years, we've lived through some very important events that have changed crypto forever. We've already talked about Mount Gox and Silk Road in a different piece, but not everything has been

dark and gloomy. Let's explore five important moments in crypto and how they're still shaping the whole industry and your own assets. The Dow hack, not every project is destined for success. The Dow by Sloc, it, launched in April 2016, seemed to have everything to be a star. It was a star for a while, Indeed, they raised around $150 million in Ether, Ed, making them one of the largest crowdfunding campaigns in history. The promise was a decentralized autonomous organization, Dow, built on Ethereum that would work as an investment fund. In other words, people would pool crypto and use voting tokens to decide which projects received financing without a traditional company or managers. It seemed like a great idea until the code didn't work as expected. The Dow brought

its own set of ingrained exploits, and a hacker took advantage of them. That's a May year, in June, they siphoned around $70 million from the project, and everyone panicked. It may not seem like a lot, considering more recent hacks on crypto platforms, but at the time, it was a huge scandal for Ethereum. The Dow was one of their first successful projects, so confidence in the network dwindled. That's why the core team made a very controversial decision. They applied a, fork, update, on the network, to erase the hack, etc. And howie since blockchains are supposed to be immutable and decentralized, not controlled by a single party, there was a lot of community backlash after the fork. Enough for the attack network to survive, with hack and all, as Ethereum classic, etc. While the

modified one continued as the Ethereum, Ed, we know today. Besides, this wasn't the only consequence. The Dow attracted considerable attention to crypto, including from regulators. In 2017, 2017, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, referenced this event when explaining how the Howie test applies to crypto assets, stating that some token offerings could qualify as securities depending on expectations of profit, promised by external efforts. In the end, the Dow managed to split Ethereum forever and brought new regulations to the table. Defy Investments One event after another.

Smart contracts are automated agreements built in code, designed to offer immutable results once preset conditions are met. After the launch of crypto networks that offered this feature, like Ethereum, in 2015, or Obite, in 2016, developers soon discovered they could be used for investments, too. They started to create a whole range of financial products that worked with smart contracts, 24-7, without access requirements or managers behind them. Decentralized finance, Defi, was born around 2017, bringing several neat events or milestones for crypto. Early stable coins appeared around 2014, using external reserves or algorithms to track a fiat price, often the U.S.D. They'd move into smart contract platforms over the years. Lending platforms appeared in

2017, locking collateral in smart contracts to mint loans. Early decentralized exchanges, DEXs, from 2016 tried AP2P approach with an order book, while automated marketmakers, AMMs in 2018 replaced that system with liquidity pools. Liquidity, mining, became a popular way of passive investment. The user only needed to deposit a pair of tokens in tow a pool to earn from fees, while others were able to trade. By 2020, about $9 billion was locked in Defi protocols, used daily for loans, liquidity, and market activity.

Crypto was no longer just an alternative form of money. It became programmable finance. Today, we have more complex Defy products, like restaking on eigen layer are perpetual futures on Obite. The total value locked, TVL, in these protocols amounts to $124.3 billion, approximately, Terra Collapse, launched in 2020, Terra was a popular blockchain ecosystem with its own stable coin, Terra USD, USD. Unlike other stable coins, backed by traditional money, UST kept its one United States dollar price by minting and burning Luna coins, the native as said of Terra. It was an algorithmic stable coin, likely the most popular of its type.

It worked for a while, until it didn't. By early 2022, Terra and Ust had attracted billions in institutional and retail investment, with the broader ecosystem peaking near $60 billion in combined value. All of this was erased on May 8th, when Usd lost its $1 peg. Market panicked, redemption spiked. Luna was dragged into the cage. and both tokens collapsed into oblivion. It wasn't just another cryptocurrency failing, though. The fallout spread far beyond Terra. Major hedge funds like Three Arrows Capital imploded after heavy exposure, triggering losses

across lenders and exchanges. Many well-known brands lost millions. Trust drained from the market, setting the stage for later failures, including FTX in late 2022. Regulators responded by zeroing in on stable coins, with new rules in regions like the EU. Algorithmic stable coins are now banned there, and in several other jurisdictions as well. Legal tender and reserve acid. In 2021, El Salvador, a small Central American nation, made global headlines when it recognized Bitcoin as a legal form of money alongside the U.S. dollar,

changing decades of monetary policy. At the same time, the government began buying Bitcoin for national reserves, funding purchases directly through the Treasury. The event brought government-backed wallets, nationwide infrastructure, and worldwide attention. Adoption among citizens moved unevenly, but the signal was loud and clear. A sovereign state was willing to build policy around an open, borderless network. International institutions pushed back, debates intensified, and a long bare market tested this decision. Still, the country held its position and kept its Bitcoin. By 2025, after revisions tied to an IMF agreement, Bitcoin was no longer mandatory for businesses and lost its legal tender requirement. Yet, the echoes remained. El Salvador retained its Bitcoin reserves,

holding over 6,200 BTCBOT at an average near $42,000. When Bitcoin surged past $120,000, those holdings exceeded $760 million, nearly tripling their value. That's maybe Waitha United States created its own Bitcoin reserve in 2025, too. No other country maintains Bitcoin as legal tender today, but the consequences endure. Governments now discuss crypto for policy and reserves. That shift began here, and it changed the conversation for good. Crypto ETFs, exchange traded funds, ETFs are investment products that trade on stock exchanges like shares while holding a basket of underlying assets. Those underlying assets could be cryptocurrencies, yes, but the details remained with regulators, constantly denying this possibility. For years, CryptoetF,

felt like a door that almost opened, then shut again. The first serious attempts appeared in the early 2010s, when proposals like the Winkle Vos Bitcoin Trust and products such as the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust gave investors indirect exposure through trusts rather than true funds. We had a breakthrough in 2021 with the ProShare's Bitcoin Strategy ETF, Beto, the first U.S product tied to Bitcoin Futures. It wasn't perfect, yet it proved demand a TAN institutional scale. More of variations followed, but none of them were directly tied to the real thing. A turning point arrived in 2024. The USSEC finally underscore-approved underscore underscore underscore-unterscore- the launch of 11 Bitcoin spot ETFs, which hold this asset directly on behalf of investors.

BlackRock's Ishare's Bitcoin Trust and Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund led the wave, drawing billions within weeks. Crypto moved from niche access to mainstream finance infrastructure, changing how institutions, advisors, and long-term investors engage with digital assets. Decentralization for the future, an important point to consider is that most of these events have pushed crypto into mainstream finance, for better or for worse. Some of them have created new rules, some others have filled the vaults of centralized parties, like big companies and governments, with a lot of cryptocurrencies. This is good for liquidity, but not that good for the decentralization crypto was created for. The best alternative,

for individual users is likely to take advantage of those new products and accessibility, while keeping their main private keys close to their hearts. Defi is also booming, with no serious limitations in sight, so users can also trade and invest through these protocols. In Obite, users can enjoy a whole range of Defy products while maintaining complete custody of their own funds and data. All of this inside a fully decentralized network, without any middlemen, no miners, no, validators. The whole industry will be able to be able to be. keep growing, but we should preserve our autonomy as well. Featured vector image by Freepig thank you for listening to this Hackernoon story, read by artificial intelligence. Visit hackernoon.com to

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