Industry experts believe that 2022 will likely be a leak year in the crypto space, as tokens with relevance, utility, and strong fundamentals will attract more investors.
In the digital universe space, 2021 was marked by the rise of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), meme coins, and initial coin offerings (ICOs). Much of the buzz was around Metaverse at the end of 2021 as Facebook changed its name to 'Meta' and multi-faceted digitization became a top fad.
Ishan Arora, a partner at Tykhe Block Venture, which is a crypto hedge fund, said that some topics to look out for in 2022 are Metaverse, Gaming, and NFT. The tokens around these topics have already started to gain popularity towards the end of 2021.
Another major topic that emerged this year was that of potential 'Ethereum Killers', with multiple tokens, including Solana, Cardano and Polkadot, offering huge returns, though they failed to dethrone the second largest cryptocurrency.
According to blockchain mavericks, Ethereum has a utility in the real world. Its blockchain supports smart contracts that can be used in a wide range of applications, they believe.
Raj A Kapoor, founder of the India Blockchain Alliance, who sounds quite bullish on Ethereum, said that it could surpass Bitcoin as the most valuable cryptocurrency sometime in 2022.
"Metavese will be another very strong topic as traditional tech giants have gotten into it. Facebook's renaming, followed by a sharp rise in crypto games, will be noteworthy events," he said.
Kapoor said that one of the main bearish cases against cryptocurrency is that it is not accepted as a viable substitute for traditional currencies. "However, in 2022, we will see that more and more companies will start accepting cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin as legal tender; both the viability and value of cryptocurrencies will likely increase," he added.
El Salvador, a small South American nation, designated Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021. Market experts believe that many other countries will follow suit or create their own digital currencies.
There is no doubt that coins with no or limited utility are about to lose their charm. And one of those segments is meme coins, which are simply geared towards fun, but those with some intrinsic value are set to stay in the field for a long time, experts said.
Also, investors should be on the lookout for decentralized finance (DeFi) projects, which have a functional product and income with a catalyst, they added.
According to Kapoor, Fetch.ai, a decentralized machine learning platform for applications like asset trading, could be a dark horse for the year.
"Last but not least, it would be the issue of the accumulated Layer 2 Zk projects that will implement various L2s on ETH. You could see more activities on L2 on Eth than on other L1 chains like Avax and Solana," said Arora from Tykhe. .
