Blockchain & Crypto Highlights of December
The release of Crypto Theses for 2022 by Messari’s founder
Crypto Theses 2021 by Messari’s founder, Ryan Selkins, is compulsory reading if you want to know about this year’s crypto developments, insights and future trends.
As outlined in the Theses, the term “Web 3.0” could eventually replace “crypto” as a decentralized movement as the democratized Internet grows stronger. This year’s DeFi development brought about self-custodied permissionless trading infrastructure, which enabled the NFT boom. This spurred greater demand for more scalable Layer 1 and Layer 2 solutions. Scalability, in turn, will trigger expansion in DAO infrastructure because as Selkins writes:
NFTs provide on-chain identity and reputation for DAO contributors; DeFi gives DAO members massive liquid pools of capital to govern; and scaling solutions will make on-chain governance economically feasible.
I suggest looking through the document in detail to see the outlook for NFTs and Web 3.0 while getting up to speed on metaverse concepts, the beginning of DeFi 2.0, Ethereum and bridges, the increasing power of DAOs, and finally, Selkins’ take on the American crypto policy.
Ethereum & Cosmos: Gravity Bridge is empowering the multichain future
The decentralized future is coming at full speed with the launch of the Gravity Bridge, which enables the transfer of ERC-20 tokens between the Ethereum and Cosmos blockchains. This open and interoperable bridge presents the perfect vision of a fully connected Interchain. Moreover, it creates numerous opportunities for bringing blockchain developers together to fulfill a shared goal of unlocking liquidity and the maximum potential of the two networks.?
Vitalik Buterin outlines that although crypto enthusiasts are looking to change the world as bulldozers, the idea and operation of crypto governance internally as DAOs is mostly vetocratic.
Image source: vitalik.ca/general/2021/12/19/bullveto.html ?
He explains:?
Bitcoin governance famously makes it very difficult to make changes, and some core "constitutional norms" (eg. the 21 million coin limit) are considered so inviolate that many Bitcoin users consider a chain that violates that rule to be by-definition not Bitcoin, regardless of how much support it has.
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Ethereum protocol research is sometimes bulldozery in operation, but the Ethereum EIP process that governs the final stage of turning a research proposal into something that actually makes it into the blockchain includes a fair share of vetocracy; though still less than Bitcoin.
Mass crypto adoption to continue—2022 will be ‘defined by agility and cost-efficiency ’?
The crypto market showed great results regarding the move towards mass adoption this year, so top-tier analysts are setting high targets for 2022 in terms of crypto prices and mass adoption.
Loukas Lagoudis, executive director of crypto and the digital assets hedge fund ARK36 suggests:
Since digital assets have consistently outperformed traditional asset classes, we predict that investors will see allocation to digital assets as a part of their risk management strategy—especially given the increasingly inflationary economic environment and the declining bond yields.
I, too, believe that the overall bullish trend will continue next year with DeFi 2.0 development. Institutional investors are prepared to further integrate crypto and blockchain solutions into legacy financial systems, due to robust blockchains that emerged in 2021 and showed outstanding performance.?
Musk announces Tesla merch purchases with DOGE
Musk has consistently supported Dogecoin over the past year and views it as the best cryptocurrency to transact with, explaining that Dogecoin is the crypto that encourages people to spend rather than store it as a stock of value.?
This month, Elon Musk announced that Tesla would allow merchandise to be purchased with DOGE coin—the price of DOGE rocketed 33% as soon as the news went out.
Dogecoin Foundation is working on a “community staking” version of proof-of-stake
The Dogecoin Foundation is developing a staking mechanism with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. A “community staking” version of PoS would enable anyone holding DOGE to stake their coins and receive rewards for contributing to the network.
Vitalik is supporting the Foundation to craft a unique DOGE proposal for a “Community staking” version of PoS. Their aim is to allow everyone, newcomers and big crypto players to participate and get contributions for their work, which benefits the whole ecosystem.?
By working with Vitalik on crafting a ‘uniquely Doge’ proposal for a ‘Community Staking’ version of PoS, it will allow everyone, not just the big players, to participate in a way that rewards them for their contribution to running the network, and at the same time giving back to the community through charitable causes.