Every industry, group, clique and caucus has its own share of weirdos — cryptocurrency and blockchain are no exception.

Considering that cryptocurrency is the so-called "native" currency of the cyberspace — the repository of the sum of human knowledge and the eccentricities there contained — the crypto sector is abode to possibly fifty-fifty weirder moments and personalities than more than established and traditional industries.

Outside of crypto's inherently odd character, 2020 itself has shaped up to be a bizarre, if non downright terrible yr. Existing socioeconomic problems in countries around the globe were exacerbated by the appearance of the novel coronavirus and governments' subsequent reactions to it.

Bolivia and Kyrgyzstan underwent political upheaval, while the United States presidential election sowed more doubt most the land's future than certainty in the peaceful transition of power.

Kanye West's fashion brand received $v million in coronavirus relief for modest businesses. Hackers gatecrashed Zoom meetings. Tiger King became a brief obsession. A agglomeration of tone-deaf celebrities sang "Imagine" and it was absolutely horrible. The list of the weird and the bad goes on.

Crypto's 2020 was no exception, with its ain off-white share of eccentric billionaires, foul-ups, power grabs and political posturing. So, equally we say "sayonara" to 2020, let's take a await at a few of the weirdest moments in crypto this year.

The crypto presidents

This year has been a large one for cryptocurrency adoption. Major financial firms have gone in on Bitcoin (BTC), with sizeable allocations and investments by banks and mutual funds.

As crypto becomes an increasingly mainstream financial instrument, information technology has attracted the admiration and ire of those in the halls of power. Proponents reached toward regulatory approving while suspicious politicians across the global sought to clench downward on crypto.

It should come as no surprise, and then, that some in the crypto community tried to influence the regulatory discourse on cryptocurrencies. A select few, withal, sought to do and so as President of the Usa.

American figurer scientist and well-known eccentric John McAfee announced his ain presidential run as the "crypto candidate" in 2018. However, things got even more interesting equally he took to running his campaign from abroad every bit he supposedly fled capture by U.Due south. authorities pursuing him on tax charges. Operations were reportedly helped along by an centre-patched campaign manager.

McAfee ofttimes stated that he was but running for president to raise awareness most cryptocurrency, and never expected to win.

In May 2020, McAfee threw in the towel on his presidential bid, instead running for vice presidency, as the Libertarian Political party in which he sought his nomination allows a vice president candidate to run separately.

Brock Pierce, a former child actor and crypto venture backer jumped into the presidential race relatively tardily, in the summer of 2020.

A co-founder of Cake.one, the organization that created EOS, Pierce was featured on British comedian John Oliver's Final Week Tonight, where Oliver drew attending to the one-time'due south eccentric spiritual take on EOS and his unicorn-themed wedding ceremony at the legendary U.South. art festival, Called-for Man.

Pierce's strategy and overall campaign image was far more tempered than that of McAfee. In addition to running on a platform prioritizing the development of digital currencies, he also had clear policies on a diversity of other relevant bug, including criminal justice reform, universal earned income and healthcare.

As we well know, neither man won. Pierce has largely gone radio silent later the entrada'southward determination, and McAfee is reportedly residing in a Spanish jail, so at that place volition be no unicorn-themed parties in the Rose Garden, and no one will be smoking bath salts in the Roosevelt Room.

The drama at Bitmain

The details of corporate leadership are frequently unknown to the layman, as the major decisions and conversations all accept place behind closed doors. One imagines Machiavellian takeovers and sycophants vying to get a rung up on the ladder, like in Billions or The Wolf of Wall Street.

The case of Bitmain, one of the largest producers of Bitcoin mining hardware, would appear to follow this stereotype.

In a story that is so dramatic information technology could have been written for Television set, the once-friends and co-founders of the Bitcoin mining giant were locked in a bitter power struggle over the company, affecting its basic operations.

In Oct of terminal year, Bitmain co-founder Micree Zhan was ousted from the company in an effort to "salvage the ship" past the firm's other co-founder, Jihan Wu.

The conflict reportedly started due to Zhan'due south supposedly disproportionate control over the company. He allegedly endemic twice as many stocks in the firm as Wu, simply the shares were downgraded as the drama began to unfold.

In May 2020, Bitmain issued statements confirming rumors that Zhan had been ousted from the visitor. Zhan subsequently sued Bitmain, and Wu ordered all employees to either sever contact with him or confront punishment.

Armed guards reportedly appeared at the firm's Beijing offices at Zhan's behest in order to plant himself as a legal representative of the company. While Wu condemned the takeover, Zhan appears to take achieved some success, as he forbade employees to consummate shipments of mining rigs.

Bitmain maintained that Zhan had no right to correspond the visitor legally, only in June, he offered to buy out the company for $iv billion in shares. He appears to take been successful in changing the firm's payments details to entities he controls, but hardware shipments still suffered and 10,000 mining rigs controlled by the firm went "missing" in Mongolia.

The Bitmain leadership struggle has yet to conclude, so we may look forrad to more weird twists and turns in 2021.

The smashing Twitter hack of 2020...

July 15, 2020 is a day that will live on in infamy for social media giant Twitter, every bit the accounts of famous politicians, businesspeople and media figures were hacked and used for a Bitcoin giveaway scam.

The pages of Elon Musk, Kanye West, President-Elect Joe Biden, one-time President Barack Obama, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates were all compromised and sent out posts with one of the oldest crypto scams in the book.

In the crypto giveaway scam, a supposedly magnanimous private claims to be sharing their wealth via Bitcoin. 1 only needs to ship a minor amount to their listed address and so that they tin ascertain what your address is, and send yous a sum worth far more than your initial transfer.

Most people with a passing familiarity with crypto are aware of this kind of scam, only some that are new to the infinite, or don't know about crypto at all, apparently don't think information technology all weird that Barack Obama wants to give them Bitcoin, and thus fall victim to the scheme.

Elon Musk's hacked crypto account

Elon Musk'due south hacked crypto account. Source: Cointelegraph

In addition to the same famous faces, hackers likewise compromised the accounts of prominent players in the crypto space, including major exchanges Binance, Coinbase and Gemini, likewise as protocols similar Tron.

While Twitter responded immediately by locking the affected blue-check accounts, the damage had already been done. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey expressed his own lamentations on the platform.

Rumors and speculation that the hack was an within task were quelled when Twitter released a study on the incident, revealing that employees with wide authoritative privileges had been victims of a spear-phishing attack.

While doppelganger accounts of famous individuals are ofttimes created to execute scams, the Twitter hack this year set a new precedent for the lengths scammers are willing to go to on social media platforms.

The $ane one thousand thousand bounty that never was

Never one to shy away from a skilful publicity stunt, Tron founder and BitTorrent CEO Justin Sun offered a $one million dollar compensation to whoever could track downward the parties responsible for the Twitter hack.

Notwithstanding, when reporters attempted to work with Tron in tracking downward the scammers, the visitor miraculously failed to follow through on its high-profile promise.

Subsequently an individual approached a Cointelegraph reporter with highly credible information regarding the potential hackers, Cointelegraph attempted to put the private in affect with Tron in social club to pass on this info.

Tron, however, seemed utterly disinterested in talking to the source, instead insisting that the source go Cointelegraph's postage stamp of approving earlier making its own examination. In its correspondence with both Cointelegraph and the source, information technology seemed similar the company was trying to get out of paying the bounty. 1 grouping chat went every bit follows:

"Source: Whenever [you] are free, we could hop in a Zoom or Discord call and explain everything to you guys.

Tron representative: No nosotros can conversation right here go ahead.

Source: It's a lot, much easier over a voice call.

Tron representative: Not happening."

Instead, Tron gear up an email account for tips, while major papers reported deep dives into the hack four days subsequently Cointelegraph and the source had initially approached Tron. Tron later claimed that an FBI investigation into the incident was sufficient crusade to terminate the compensation.

Tron's behavior did seem rather odd, given its proposed goals, in addition to being rather convenient, as information technology didn't need to pay out the generous sum.

The Dickening

Price predictions grow in the crypto space. Experts and analysts take predicted a Bitcoin bull run leading the coin to $100,000 during this cycle, and maybe as loftier equally $i million by 2035. One Citibank analyst recently predicted a Bitcoin price of over $300,000 in 2021.

Nevertheless, in that location is i item price prediction that earns a spot on the weird-list this year. John McAfee, whom nosotros already know as affirmed eccentric within the crypto space, made a bet iii years agone that could be rather painful if he really delivers.

In 2017, McAfee bet that Bitcoin would hit $500,000 by 2020, and if non, he would eat his ain genitalia on television. As the 2017 bull run gained steam, however, he upped his bet.

The outcome, which has become known every bit The Dickening and earned its own inaugural clock, is now less than two weeks away.

And then, all Bitcoin price needs to practice for McAfee to avert a rude luncheon is to increase past almost five,000% in the side by side several days. Mayhap it's a good matter his bet isn't locked into a smart contract.

The twelvemonth to come up

As 2020 comes to a close, one affair is clear: The cryptocurrency space is growing and adoption will proceed to increase throughout 2021 and the years to come up. As the industry thrives, the weirdos contained therein will likely keep to shock and entertain both insiders and observers.