Terra, Celsius, 3AC Wiped $53.5B From Crypto Portfolios — FTX? Only $9B

Crypto has survived far worse things this year than FTX implosion, Chainalysis has found

article-image

CryptoFX/Shutterstock.com modified by Blockworks

share

Chainalysis has calculated that two major crypto catastrophes leading up to FTX’s sudden bankruptcy were more damaging to crypto investors: Terra’s depegging in May, followed in June by collapses at Celsius and hedge fund firm Three Arrows Capital (3AC).

The firm measured realized gains and losses for all personal crypto wallets over the year, so no crypto exchange hot or cold wallets and the like. Chainalysis’ goal in three easy steps: Find at which point all wallets lost most of their value.

  1. Measure the value of each wallet’s assets at the time they were deposited.
  2. Subtract the value of any portion of those assets sent to another wallet.
  3. Account for price differences at different times the assets were acquired (“e.g. a wallet holding some Bitcoin acquired at $30,000 and some acquired at $20,000”).

“We can’t assume that any cryptocurrency sent from a given wallet is necessarily going to be liquidated, so think of these numbers as an upper bound for realized gains of a given wallet,” Chainalysis said.

“This methodology can therefore give us a directional sense of when investors lock in gains and losses.”

And so, Chainalysis says Terra’s failed algorithmic stablecoin wiped $20.5 billion from personal crypto wallets. Celsius and 3AC kicking the bucket sent values tumbling $33 billion.

FTX, on the other hand, seemed to have affected markets by a much smaller degree, only $9 billion.

Terra Celsius 3AC FTX

“These charts don’t take everything into account: For instance, people who used FTX likely lost any funds they kept on the exchange, and the likelihood of recovering them is unknown,” Chainalysis said. 

“But from a market-wide point of view, the data above suggests that as of now, the heaviest hitting crypto events of 2022 were already behind investors by the time the FTX debacle took place.”


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 24 - 26, 2026

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template (1).jpg

Research

As AI supercharges surveillance, privacy becomes a prerequisite and the winning stack will combine confidentiality with selective disclosure. Zcash’s Tachyon, composable standards on Ethereum/Solana, and compliance-aware pools aim to make private rails the new norm.

article-image

Swiss regulator Gespa is assessing whether FIFA’s tokenized ticket sales for the 2026 World Cup violate gambling laws

by Blockworks /
article-image

The deal gives Ondo Finance SEC-registered broker-dealer, ATS, and transfer agent licenses to operate regulated tokenized securities markets

by Blockworks /
article-image

Ethereum and Solana funds mark industry first as Grayscale adds staking to spot crypto products

by Blockworks /
article-image

US bitcoin ETFs that seen more than $2.2 billion of net inflows over the last four trading days

by Blockworks /
article-image

More than 75 million U.S. Galaxy owners gain integrated Coinbase One access through Samsung Wallet, with global rollout planned

by Blockworks /
article-image

The central bank signed agreements with firms for fraud, payments, and app services ahead of a potential launch

by Blockworks /