New Year’s Special
What’s ahead for crypto and blockchain in 2022? Experts answer, Part 1
Sandra is CEO of the Global Blockchain Business Council, an industry association for the blockchain technology ecosystem. “In 2022, it will be ‘corporate career risk’ to not have a baseline understanding of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. From bankers to corporate executives to politicians, it is imperative that they get on board and seriously consider the implications of blockchain. Further, 2022 winners will ‘expect the unexpected,’ and adapt to investing, servicing clients and participating in new trends. In 2021, few expected NFTs to become the killer app, driving mainstream interest and adoption. Web3, the Metaverse and DAOs will enter mainstream curiosity in 2022. The boring infrastructure stuff is critical. ...
Analysts say 2022 will be ‘defined by agility and cost-efficiency’ instead of ‘blockchain purity’
The entire crypto market took great strides toward mass adoption in 2021 and now that the year is nearly complete, analysts are setting their price targets for 2022. Many analysts supported calls for a $100,000 (BTC) price before the end of 2021 and although this seems unlikely, most investors expect the key price level to be tackled before Q2 of 2022. Here’s a look at some of the Bitcoin price predictions analysts are expecting in 2022. Bitcoin is still on track to surpass $100,000 Analysts has been more reticent in providing off the cuff Bitcoin predictions ever since PlanB’s stock-to-flow model incorrectly predicted a $98,000 BTC price by the end of November, even though the model had been spot on from August through October. While some traders are now questioning the validity of ...
Crypto mainstream adoption: Is it here already? Experts Answer, Part 3
Sebastian is the chief strategy officer at Coinsource, a Bitcoin ATM provider in the United States. “In 2022, we expect more countries to follow El Salvador’s lead and adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, particularly countries across Latin America and Asia. As a result, we anticipate an increase in the number of Bitcoin ATMs across Latin America, and also in Europe. As new countries adopt, it is likely U.S. dominance in the crypto industry will be reduced. Regulation of crypto will continue into 2022, which is generally a good thing. However, it must be reasonable and fairly applicable to all. We have the potential to solve compliance in many of the protocols once and for all, so we need to double down on this. The industry is on a good path to increase the standards by whic...
10 women who used crypto to make a difference in 2021
This year, new research showed that there’s still a long way to go before there is gender parity in the crypto and blockchain space. WEF’s April Global Gender Gap Report 2021 found that it will take close to 135.6 years to close the gender gap due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, that hasn’t stopped these women who used blockchain technology and cryptocurrency to tackle a whole range of social issues ranging from girls’ education in developing countries to the wealth gap in black communities in the United States. In no particular order, these 10 women are changing the world using crypto one block at a time. Tavonia Evans Tavonia Evans is the founder and lead engineer of GUAP Coin, which she created to help close the wealth gap and support black-owned businesses in the United States. Desp...
From DeFi year to decade: Is mass adoption here? Experts Answer, Part 3
Tristan is the core contributor to Zeta Markets, an under-collateralized DeFi derivatives platform, providing liquid derivatives trading to individuals and institutions alike. “We’ve seen a Cambrian explosion in the DeFi ecosystem in 2021, with peak TVL approaching $300 billion vs the 2020 peak of $21 billion. This sounds like the growth surely has to slow. Yet, DeFi still represents just a fraction of CeFi trading volumes. At Zeta, we see a clear opportunity for more and more CeFi infrastructure to be built on-chain in a permissionless manner. This will unlock innovative products that have previously been impossible to implement. The following has already started to happen: Composability trumps the siloed products of CeFi, which has created really powerful network effe...
5 cryptocurrency projects that made waves in 2021
2021 was a breakout year for the cryptocurrency market in many respects and most investors are absolutely thrilled that Bitcoin (BTC) price established a new all-time high of $68,789. In the same timeframe, Ether (ETH) went on a parabolic rally which saw its price gain 565% from Jan. 1 to hit a record high at $4,859 on Nov. 10. While it was a banner year for large cap cryptocurrencies, some of the biggest gains and most impactful developments came from the altcoin market where decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) rallied by thousands of percent and helped to usher in a new level of awareness and adoption for blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. Here’s a look at five altcoin projects that made significant contributions to the cryptocurrency ecosystem in 2021. Un...
Ho-ho-hodl: Crypto-themed gifts that have you covered during the Holidays
Tis’ the season of giving and with Christmas right around the corner, it’s time to get the holiday shopping out of the way. With the digital asset market having matured as much as it has, there are now crypto enthusiasts in virtually every family and friend circle across the globe. In this festive piece, we’ve listed out some of the best crypto-themed gifts you can get for those who love everything about this fast-evolving space. From quality clothing and books to gift cards and everything else in between, when sourcing the perfect crypto-centric gift, it is best to probably think outside the box because that’s pretty much what might have gotten any cryptocurrency enthusiast into this market in the first place. So, without any further ado, let’s jump straight in. The annual Bit...
Crypto mainstream adoption: Is it here already? Experts Answer, Part 1
Sameep is the founder of QuickSwap, a decentralized exchange on Polygon that allows users to swap, earn, stack yields, lend, borrow and leverage all on one decentralized, community-driven platform. “Just compare the overall market caps from the beginning of 2021 until today to illustrate how much crypto has grown this year. According to CoinMarketCap, on Jan. 1, crypto’s market cap was about $773 billion. Now it’s over $2.3 trillion. Despite the dollar’s rapid inflation, to me, annual growth of more than $1.5 trillion definitely suggests that mass adoption has begun, but there’s still a lot of room for crypto to continue to grow. To enable that growth, more people need to learn about the alternatives to expensive layer-o...
From DeFi year to decade: Is mass adoption here? Experts Answer, Part 1
Dominik is the co-founder and chairman of the Iota Foundation, an open-source distributed ledger and cryptocurrency designed for the Internet of Things. “The biggest difference between crypto in 2017 and crypto in 2022 is the establishment of tangible business models and use cases within our ecosystem thanks to DeFi. We no longer have to wait for external parties such as large companies to drive adoption. We can do it ourselves with applications that introduce much-needed innovation to the base level of our economy — finance. 2021 has been a tremendous year for early-stage validation and growing excitement toward DeFi’s potential. But it’s still early stages. DeFi isn’t yet comparable to fintech companies like Revolut or N26 (2 million to 5...
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