At the tail end of 2019, the cryptocurrency community finally welcomed the world of decentralized finance, popular as DeFi, setting the industry ablaze in value and adoption growth, less than three years since the revolution began. The DeFi industry, according to DeFi Pulse, rose exponentially from a little below $700 million in December 2019 to over $110 billion at its peak in November 2021, nearing the 2017 GDP of Ukraine. At the start of 2021, crypto ‘degens’ once again roared to the growth of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), as Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and CryptoPunks became mainstream.
With the cryptocurrency world experiencing wild growth in value and adoption, more investors are selecting crypto assets as a crucial part of their portfolio. Additionally, the explosive innovation of the crypto industry is causing investors to keep searching for the next big thing, if the last three years are anything to go by. In this article, we combed through hundreds of projects to find the next big innovations in crypto that have the potential to follow the magnanimous growth trajectory of the DeFi and NFT industries.
Crypto Projects to Focus On in Q2 2022
Metaverse projects
Platform: Envision Platform
In October, Facebook shocked the world by announcing its name switch to Meta and launching its own metaverse platform to introduce a new quasi-virtual world to its users. The entry of Facebook into the metaverse has seen multiple companies show their desire to enter the space and the field could well dominate, not only in the next quarter but in the coming decade as well. According to a report by Grand View Research Inc., the global metaverse market value is predicted to reach nearly $700 billion by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 39.4% over the forecast period.
The predicted growth owes to the increasing demand from end-use industries including the media, entertainment, education, photography, medicine, gaming, etc. As such blockchain companies are entering the space at an alarming rate, with the blockchain metaverse industry estimated to be a $100 billion market today.
Image: Envision platform
If you have been in the space for a while, you might have come across Decentraland, The Sandbox, and Axie Infinity amongst other metaverse worlds. While these platforms made a name for themselves earlier in 2022, one project that is making its way in the metaverse world is Envision, a crypto-based stock content platform. It facilitates the peer-to-peer exchange of stock content where content creators sell directly to the consumer, avoiding hefty fees or forfeiting rights as per current centralized solutions.
Once the creator has linked their decentralized wallet to the platform, they can set up a profile on an NFT marketplace, upload their stock media onto the Envision stock platform, and prepare for the sale. Consumers can then search for their preferred stock media and pay for it in the $VIS token to claim full ownership rights by minting the NFT.
Cross-chain technology
Another big innovation making its way to the front of the crypto scene is cross-chain technology or interoperability across multiple blockchains. It is a well-known problem that blockchains cannot communicate or share information with one another since they are built in silos to boost the security of the transactions and data passing through them. Nonetheless, with enterprises, companies, and governments gradually adopting blockchain solutions, interoperability becomes a critical problem that blockchain developers must solve to boost the global adoption of the technology.
And two blockchain platforms, namely Wanchain and t3rn, are doing precisely that. Launched in 2017, Wanchain provides asset swaps and transfers on one network, connecting multiple blockchains to create one big blockchain marketplace for all users. Any blockchain network, whether that be a public, private, or consortium chain, can integrate with Wanchain to establish connections between different ledgers and perform low-cost inter-ledger asset transfers.
T3rn, a smart contract hosting platform, provides interoperable smart contract execution with fail-safe mechanisms that are built-in, meaning successful multi-chain execution can always be guaranteed. The t3rn protocol focuses specifically on the fail-safe aspect of cross-chain execution, where an execution finishes in all of the connected blockchains or rolls back all of the trice (side effects).
Privacy-enabled identity protocols
Finally, privacy-enabled identity protocols also show a massive potential for booming in the coming months, as more users switch to blockchain to protect their personal data and identity from the prying eyes of the government or third parties. With NFTs gaining massive adoption in recent days, PhotoChromic, a blockchain-based identity platform, is expanding the use of NFTs to provide users with the privacy and security they require.
Simply, PhotoChromic enables people to securely own and verify their identity and personal information through an NFT. The tokenized NFTs can be programmable, are universally addressable, and open the door for additional functionality. Notwithstanding, the platform aggregates biometric proof-of-life, with government-backed identity verification and unique personal attributes into an on-chain asset that is utilized for blockchain-based identity verification and Web3 applications. The protocol ensures the users enjoy immutable security and independent management of their identity and data while providing multi-chain access to Ethereum, Polygon, and Cardano blockchains.
Conclusion
The development and innovation in the blockchain space are not limited to the three categories mentioned above. Nonetheless, as Q2 2022 kicks off, these seem to be the most likely innovations to pick up speed in value and adoption growth in the coming three months. Can a new blockchain innovation outdo the projects on our list? Let us know in the comments below!
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2022-04-07 16:58:17
