crypto winter," with high-profile companies collapsing across

2022 marked the start of a new "crypto winter," with high-profile companies collapsing across the board and prices of digital currencies crashing spectacularly. The events of the year took many investors by surprise and made the task of predicting bitcoin's price that much harder.

The crypto market was awash with pundits making feverish calls about where bitcoin was heading next. They were often positive, though a few correctly forecast the cryptocurrency sinking below $20,000 a coin.

But many market watchers were caught off guard in what has been a tumultuous year for crypto, with high-profile company and project failures sending shock waves across the industry.

It began in May with the collapse of terraUSD, or UST, an algorithmic stablecoin that was supposed to be pegged one-to-one with the U.S. dollar. Its failure brought down terraUSD's sister token luna and hit companies with exposure to both cryptocurrencies.

Three Arrows Capital, a hedge fund with bullish views on crypto, plunged into liquidation and filed for bankruptcy because of its exposure to terraUSD.