Blockchain Trends That You Should Watch for 2022

The year 2021 has been eventful for cryptocurrencies, with the overall market cap surpassing $2 trillion. According to data gathered by PitchBook Data, venture capitalists have invested around $30 billion in cryptocurrency, which is more than all previous years combined.

The rise of DeFi services, NFTs, Web 3.0, play-to-earn games, and decentralized social media may be contributing factors to the increasing popularity of cryptocurrencies as an asset class.

This year, blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies made significant gains toward public acceptability, and it will be fascinating to see what happens in 2022. We've made some predictions for the coming year:

Sustainable Cryptocurrencies

Concerns about energy-intensive cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin peaked in 2021, with environmentalists and businesses expressing their unhappiness. Tesla CEO Elon Musk banned Bitcoin vehicle purchases in May due to the fast expanding consumption of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining. It sparked ongoing discussions in the community about how to make cryptocurrency more sustainable, and the good news is that there are alternatives to Proof of Work (PoW). Cardano, Cudos, Fantom, and Polkadot are just a few of the environmentally conscious enterprises that use eco-friendly currencies.

Interoperability and NFTs

The year 2021 was a watershed moment for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), with art sales in the millions. According to emerging trends, 2022 will be the year of dynamic NFTs over static NFTs. The qualities and data collected in a dynamic NFT can be altered on the fly by using external inputs, increasing its utility far beyond collectibles in the game industry.

Metaverse

With firms such as Snap, Nvidia, Meta, and Microsoft backing the metaverse with cutting-edge technology, the metaverse is set to burst in 2022. Goldman Sachs has stated in a note that blockchain technology and cryptocurrency must be at the center of the metaverse. To be sure, blockchain technology may be used to uniquely identify any virtual object without the intervention of a central authority, and ownership is crucial to the metaverse's operation.

Gaming

The gaming business has the most similarities to the concept of a metaverse, with millions of daily active users in the virtual worlds of Roblox and Fortnite. With continued improvements in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), as well as the popularity of play-to-earn games, gaming experiences will become more immersive.

Crypto adoption is surging.

In 2021, global crypto acceptance will be exponential, with countries such as El Salvador recognizing Bitcoin as legal cash. More Latin American countries, such as Panama, Cuba, and Paraguay, may welcome cryptocurrencies by 2022. According to Chainalysis' Global Crypto Adoption Index, cryptocurrency adoption has increased by 880 percent in the last year.

PayPal, Mastercard, Starbucks, Amazon, Visa, and many other major businesses are in various phases of piloting initiatives and managing crypto transactions on their payment networks.

Increased participation in online networks such as Twitter, Keybase, LinkedIn and Facebook is also fueling crypto adoption. These forums have evolved into meeting places for newcomers to interact with projects and seasoned investors to get insights and strengthen their faith in the currency.