Welcome back to a special series of Emlex podcasts designed to make sense of

2023 and what the new year is likely to bring. My name is James Panicki. I'm Emlex's Asia Pacific Senior Editor,

and it's great to have your company again today. Now, whatever your views on cryptocurrencies,

and there's no shortage of opinions out there at the moment, clearly 2022 was the year in which

the concerns over how best to regulate cryptocurrencies came to the fore.

In no small part that was because of the spectacular implosion of FTX,

the crypto exchange that had until then appeared invincible.

But regulating new technologies is fraught at the best of times,

and the pathway forward is far from clear.

Luckily for us, our reporter Phoebe Sears, who covers both financial services and financial

crime from London, has been keeping an eye on developments and she filed this forward-looking

audio note to kick off 2023.

James, hi. Right, well, what a year 2022 was for crypto. Remember, it was only kind of a little

more than 12 months ago that the global crypto market was worth more than $3 trillion.

The algorithmic stable coin terror was trundling along with its $1 peg.

The Singapore hedge fund Three Arrows were solvent, and Sam, Bankman Freed, had secured a $32 billion valuation for his exchange, FTX.

And then 2022 happened.

Beginning with a downturn in investor confidence in crypto, Terra and its sister coin Luna crashed out of the market.

A little while later, that brought down the hedge fund Three Arrow's Capital.

And of course, unless you've been living under a rock for the past couple of months,

you will have read about the bankruptcy of FTX and the subsequent criminal charges that have been filed against its founder, to date,

the most spectacular and significant failure in the crypto industry.

...