Hi everyone,

First off, Happy New Years to everyone. I hope you all had a great year, and that you have an even better year in 2015.

2014 was quite a year for /r/BitcoinMarkets. We watched another boom and bust situation unfold, followed by the collapse of an early exchange juggernaut in Mt. Gox. We also witnessed the emergence of China and Chinese Exchanges that feature zero fee trading in 2014, as well as the first Federal auctions of confiscated Bitcoins. When the year began, we had approximately 10,000 subscribers to this subreddit, and that figure has grown into nearly 18,500 as I'm typing this (85% growth in a years time). Given that growth, we also felt the need to add two new moderators during the year (/u/jenninsea and /u/ClydeMachine), and I'd like to say thanks to them for their help in moderating this year, as it's been big for us. I'd also like to call out our other active moderators, /u/chancrescolex & /u/testname33 & /u/skywalk819, for their work throughout the year in making /r/bitcoinmarkets one of the places to come for bitcoin news and information every single day. Finally, I'd like to thank all of you for contributing your thoughts, comments, ideas, jokes, charts, memes, and videos during the year. You are the ones truly making /r/bitcoinmarkets what it is today.

With that out of the way, on to the awards!

Best Community Engagement by a Bitcoin Exchange Representative (No prize awarded for this category)

• Winner: /u/ZaneTackett, OKCoin representative.
  Thanks for your time in /r/BitcoinMarkets in 2014! Enjoy your recognition.

The Educator - This award is given to the person who is always willing to patiently explain a concept, tool, trading method, or other metric to someone else.

• Winner: /u/Emocmo.
  Congratulations on the award and we will reach out to you soon to award you your credit for 1 month of Reddit Gold.

Best Original Content - This is awarded to the user who created the best original content during 2014.

• Winner: /u/Anndddyyyy for being a man of his word and eating his hat.
  Thanks for giving us one of the funniest posts of the year.

Best Daily Discussion Contributions

• Winner: /u/Emocmo for his Point-and-Figure Charts.
  (This is Emocmo's second Best of /r/BitcoinMarkets award, a status that he alone holds).

Quote of the Year

• Winner: /u/qwsazxcde1 for "1D EMA JUST CROSSED OVER. THIS IS GENTLEMEN."
  Thank you for accidentally birthing /r/BitcoinmMarkets Quote of the Year!

The "Always Excellent" Award

• Winner: Apparently y'all think that I deserve this award. I really appreciate that everyone. Thanks for everything! Since I was going to fund the Reddit Gold for this award personally, I'll probably just give out 1 months worth to someone that exemplifies the "Always Excellent" ethos in the next few weeks. So y'all be on your best behavior and I might surprise you with some gold.

and finally, the award for Best Technical Analyst

• Winner: /u/ibankbtc Congratulations on the award, ibankbtc. You were a new addition to /r/BitcoinMarkets in 2014, but you diligently applied your trading strategies and went to pretty great lengths to provide readers with transparency and your views on the market. For that reason, you are /r/BitcoinMarkets Best Technical Analyst of 2014.

Congratulations to all of the winners. We're still waiting the Reddit Gold credits from the admin team, but once we have them we will distribute them as necessary. Let's make 2015 a great year, folks.