The past 12 months were a turbulent period for the crypto sector, as Covid-19, inflation, lawsuits, and regulations throughout the year placed immense stress on cryptos. However, the crypto sector showed its resilience by not only surviving but managing to offer a truer digital transformation, since numerous sectors such as DeFi, Gaming, NFTs, and Metaverse got embraced by people outside of the crypto community.
Experts predict 2022 to be pivotal for the crypto world, as 2021 provided a clear path for Bitcoin and Ethereum to attract serious institutional investor interest, disrupting traditional finance niches like savings and fund management.
2022 is set to be the year of Web 3.0, increase in stablecoins interest, and data-driven protocols manifest to take hold of the control in the fast approaching the new year.
Indeed, NFTs managed to reach people deep outside the crypto sector and develop an entirely new economy. NFT marketplaces like Opensea and Mintable, gaming platforms such as Axie Infinity, and artworks like CryptoPunks skyrocketed and secured a wide range of users, including creators, traders, and service providers.
According to data from Messari, NFT secondary sales now account for over $15 billion in volume, with a strong emphasis on gaming, PFPs (profile pics), sports, and collectibles.
Furthermore, Ethereum’s dominance in the DeFi and NFT worlds may soon be shaken with the emergence of projects like Polygon and Solana, which also host NFT sales.
NFT sales and DeFi may as well benefit from the rapid insurgence of the 5G networks, which ensures high-speed connectivity, annihilating the need of placing servers close to cryptocurrency exchanges.
Meanwhile, traditional cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum managed to increase large-scale investor appetite for a fast and convenient way to enter the crypto world without directly exposing them to cryptocurrencies. The need for Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds pushed several companies to offer such products, but for now, the regulators are placing enormous scrutiny on such offerings.
Stablecoins are among the hottest topics in 2021, as they offer a haven from high volatile assets such as BTC and ETH. Tether (USDT), for example, has become a staple for stablecoins, despite the lawsuits and accusations. Some countries like Myanmar even added Tether (USDT) as an official currency.
Last but not least, 2022 ought to be the year of data-driven protocols, as crypto projects such as The Graph and Ocean Protocol are quickly gaining momentum.