The world of cryptocurrencies peaked last year. The total market cap of digital currencies is now over $1.6 trillion. And it is estimated that there are over 300 million crypto users around the world.
In this new report, we share the biggest trends in the crypto space right now (2022). And will probably continue in 2025 and beyond.
Institution Adopting Cryptocurrency Ecosystem
Nowhere is this more evident than in the money management industry.
By the end of 2020, $15 billion of corporate assets had been allocated to the cryptographic asset class under management. This is compared to $2 billion at the end of 2019.
Additionally, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (the way many institutions may be exposed to bitcoin) saw a 900% increase in assets in 2020. While this figure is still small compared to the wealth management industry in general, regulatory clarity could strengthen this figure in the future.
Until then, companies like MassMutual will help expedite the transfer. Crucial financial guardians make it easy for consumers to trade cryptocurrencies. Paypal and its subsidiary, Venmo, made crypto trading possible on their platform last year.
Data from PayPal shows that users who bought cryptocurrency with the Paypal app saw twice as many logins as before Paypal allowed these transactions. Additionally, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) introduced micro-Ethereum futures contracts in December 2021. CoinDesk also notes that the number of “Bitcoin Whales” (1,000+ Bitcoin addresses) has been growing rapidly since late 2020.
More Use Cases Of Defi Power
In the last year, nothing more than the advent of DeFi (Decentralized Finance) https://learn.bybit.com/defi/ applications has attracted the attention of the digital currency community. This concept basically encompasses traditional financial transactions that take place on the blockchain. These transactions are generally possible using smart contracts. And unlike traditional payments and transfers, you don’t need a financial intermediary. DeFi transactions generally range from traditional lending to derivatives generation.
And the growth of the DeFi space is just beginning. DeFi Pulse reports that Total Value Locked (TVL), which measures the total value of cryptocurrencies covered by DeFi smart contracts, has risen from $2 billion to $15 billion in 2020.
And 2021 brought unprecedented growth. Since its launch last year, TVL has more than doubled to nearly $100 billion. One of the most popular DeFi applications these days is yield farming. Yield farming involves lending crypto assets to other platforms for interest or new cryptocurrencies. At first glance, income farming is very similar to digital banking.
Users deposit their crypto assets in a pool of funds and earn interest on those assets. Depositors are often deploying new crypto platforms. And in exchange for the liquidity they provide, they receive new crypto assets. In a low-interest-rate environment, yield farming platforms are gaining attention due to the high-interest rates they can offer to depositors.
NFTs Tokenize Everything
One of the most exciting advances in cryptography is the advent of irreplaceable tokens (NFT). These codes essentially represent a digital claim to something unique or an asset. The things they represent can be digital or physical. Token coins are not necessarily used to express complaints to all properties or physical things. You can be exchanged and can be divided into small pieces.
On the other hand, we represent the needs of things, such as domain names, physical or digital graphics, collector components, and video games. Generally, it was built-in ETH blocks, and most NFTs saw an intelligent agreement explaining digital or physical products representing.
And most of them are not divided into a finger token (even if they change). The segmentation of this market makes it difficult to estimate its overall size. However, you can get a general idea by looking at the individual NFT platforms. By some estimates, NFT sales in October 2021 are around $15 million.
However, this number could increase as the market capitalization of the Ethereum NFT sector increases from $3 million in January to $33 million.
Conclusion
This concludes our list of top crypto trends to watch right now. The cryptocurrency market has been almost completely unpredictable in recent years. Not only through new innovations (such as NFTs). But also due to the general volatility of the market with regular coins (such as Polkadot and Litecoin) and many altcoins (such as Dogecoin). It is certain that innovation will continue in this area.
