The 2022 crypto crash: Terra, Celsius and FTX in one year

How far did Bitcoin fall in the 2022 crypto crash?

Bitcoin peaked at $67,566.83 on 7 November 2021 and ended 2021 at $47,686.81, nearly 30% below that peak. On 22 January 2022 it fell below $35,000, almost 50% under the high. On 18 June it dropped below $18,000. On 28 November, after the FTX collapse, it hit $16,216, a two-year low.

From peak to low the fall measures about 76%, calculated from those two quoted prices. The decline came in steps, not in a single drop: each step followed a new piece of bad news. This shape separates 2022 from March 2020, when half the value went in a few weeks, and gives the year its place as a test of trust in intermediaries.

How did Federal Reserve rate rises shape the 2022 crypto crash?

In early May 2022, after the Federal Reserve raised rates by 0.5%, Bitcoin fell 27% over 8 days to just over $29,000, and Ethereum fell 33.5% to around $1,960. Higher rates make safe assets pay more, so risky assets lose some appeal. The move set the stage for the failures that followed.

Rates also raise the cost of borrowing. Firms that had borrowed to earn yield found their positions harder to carry as prices dropped. Rates did not cause the individual failures, which came from choices inside each company, yet they removed the cushion that had hidden those choices during the rise of 2021.

What happened to Terra in the 2022 crypto crash?

Beginning on 9 May 2022, TerraUSD, a stablecoin meant to hold a dollar peg, began to break that peg. Over the following week it fell to about 10 cents. Terraform Labs temporarily halted the Terra blockchain on 13 May, and the collapse wiped out almost $45 billion in market capitalization within a week.

LUNA, the companion token, fell to virtually zero from an all-time high of $119.51. In 2023 the founder Do Kwon was arrested in Montenegro; in August 2025 he pleaded guilty to two fraud charges and agreed to forfeit US$19 million. The Terra chapter shows how a peg that rests on market confidence can fail in days, and why the first week decides most of the damage.

How did Celsius and Three Arrows Capital follow Terra in 2022?

Celsius paused all withdrawals on 13 June 2022, citing extreme market conditions, and filed for Chapter 11 on 13 July. It had almost $12 billion in assets under management in May. At filing it listed $5.5 billion of liabilities, of which $4.7 billion was owed to users, against $167 million in cash.

A British Virgin Islands court ordered the liquidation of Three Arrows Capital on 27 June 2022. The fund had invested roughly $200 million in LUNA in February, and creditor claims reached about $3.5 billion. Voyager Digital issued a default notice the same day over a loan worth more than $665 million. Lenders and funds were tied together.

How did the FTX failure close the 2022 crypto crash?

On 2 November 2022 CoinDesk reported that about 40% of Alameda Research’s $14.6 billion in assets was FTT token. On 8 November FTT lost 80% of its value, and FTX saw about $6 billion in customer withdrawals in roughly 72 hours, citing Reuters. On 9 November FTX said it was not processing withdrawals.

FTX, FTX.US, Alameda Research and more than 100 affiliates filed for Chapter 11 on 11 November 2022. Genesis halted withdrawals on 16 November, and BlockFi filed for Chapter 11 on 28 November. In August 2024 a US court ordered FTX to pay $12.7 billion to former customers and fraud victims, as described by the CFTC.

Why did the 2022 crypto crash unfold as a chain of failures?

The chain has a visible order. Terra removed almost $45 billion of value in May, and one fund that had backed LUNA, Three Arrows Capital, went into liquidation in June. Voyager issued a default notice to that fund, and Celsius froze withdrawals. Confidence in intermediaries drained month after month. By November, customers withdrew from FTX fast enough to expose its balance sheet within 72 hours.

Each link rested on one weakness: balance sheets that readers could not see. Public ledgers show token movements, yet they show little of a company’s lending and its own token holdings. The dated sequence above gives a decision maker a map: ask which firms lend to which, and ask for audited proof of reserves.

Which checks does the 2022 crypto crash suggest?

Four checks come from 2022. Ask each venue for audited proof of reserves. Map which firms lend to which, so that one failure does not surprise you. Read the share of a company’s balance sheet held in its own token. Size positions to a drawdown you can absorb, using the 76% fall as one reference point.

The EQOS Asia method page explains how these checks become a score, and a 30-minute pre-diagnostic applies them to your exposure. This page is general information, not investment advice. It reports documented events and forecasts no date, so a reader can verify each claim against the cited records.

Frequently asked questions

About the author

Stéphane Jambu

President, EQOS Forecast Asia

Stéphane Jambu leads EQOS Forecast Asia and works as a consultant in e-commerce, search visibility, and AI. LinkedIn profile