As a result of the demise of crypto exchange FTX, the implosion of cryptocurrency LUNA, and a slew of other calamities, governments around the world are enacting new regulations to oversee the industry. Exchanges, asset managers, and investment funds will almost certainly be scrutinised in the coming months.
Meanwhile, markets are still dealing with a global liquidity adjustment as a result of central banks implementing massive interest rate hikes in an attempt to cool inflation. The cryptocurrency market is bearish, and if more bad news comes in, sell-offs are likely.
Nonetheless, LBank Co-Founder Johnason Chan expects the crypto industry to reach new milestones this year.
“There are several opportunities in the crypto market for retail investors to focus on,” states Chan. “While the bear market rages on, the technological progress under the hood of crypto never takes any breaks.”
1. Layer 2 and Web3 combine
In the last few months, so-called layer 2 solutions have been all the rage among blockchain developers. This technology is built to run on top of existing blockchain protocols and aims to improve the speed and/or efficiency of the underlying blockchain. Web3 refers to decentralized apps that are built to eventually achieve the next stage of the internet; one that would ideally use community-oriented consensus mechanisms like blockchains do.
“Web3 will be a big opportunity for the next wave of blockchain applications, but more solid blockchain platforms are required to host them”, Chan says. The crypto pioneer claims that blockchains like Ethereum will continue to play a central role in the evolution of Web3, but layer 2 solutions will help new apps to truly blossom. “As more layer 2 technologies mature and infrastructure is built, it will bring new opportunities for the development of Web3”
2. Don’t write off NFTs just yet
Although NFTs lost a significant portion of their total market value in 2022, Chan believes these tokens haven’t been utilized correctly yet.
“NFTs still provide new opportunities for underlying assets and blockchain expressions,” Chan states. “Currently, NFTs mainly consist of assets for chain games. But they can be used to express so much more. I believe they could be an important force to kick-start the next bull run in this market.”
3. Chain games are drawing lots of attention
The aforementioned chain games may also attract a completely new class of investors to the cryptocurrency industry. Chain games are one of the most recent developments in the Web3 space, combining smart-contract-based competitions with modern gameplay.
“The development of chain games may usher in completely new opportunities for the video game industry. As more institutions and game studios enter this brand-new market, developers will be able to create more products in 2023. It’s definitely worth it to follow this evolution,” Chan explains.
4. DAOs might boost the next innovation wave
Many of the most revolutionary crypto projects have been led by decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs). Chan predicts that 2023 will see the emergence of many more of these organizations.
Chan also said: “Last year saw a lot of new DAO mechanisms and novel governance institutions and strategies crop up. This trend will not relent this year.”
According to Chan, the reason why DAOs remain attractive is because of their core overhaul of governance mechanisms and on-chain governance.
He says: “Keen investors will keep an eye on whether there will be an innovation breakthrough to allow more users to participate in DAOs at a lower cost”
5. When DeFi and traditional finance meet
So-called decentralized finance (DeFi) did not perform well last year. “These innovations almost became synonymous with fraud”, Chan says.
However, the continuous innovation of DeFi since 2021 has undoubtedly created many new possibilities.
The LBank Co-Founder says: “Traditional finance will definitely find a way to implement some of these innovations. Products of these institutes might be created on DeFi platforms one day”
6. Towards decentralized identities?
Decentralized identifiers (DIDs) are a relatively new type of digital identifier that enable the verification of several subjects, be it a person, organizations, data models, or other abstract entities.
However, for this technology to get picked up more often, more use cases in DID form will need to pop up.
“Digital identity was gradually paid more attention to in 2022, which was reflected in some new apps. But more DID scenarios need to exist. How else can a Web2 user ever identify his digital assets on Web3 platforms?,” Chan concludes.
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