Any argument of the future of cryptocurrency must begin with an understanding of where the industry stands right now. This is due to three factors: the blockchain field is new, it moves quickly, and it interacts with other technology.
Any argument of the future of cryptocurrency must begin with an understanding of where the industry stands right now. This is due to three factors: the blockchain field is new, it moves quickly, and it interacts with other technology.
Cryptography has existed for a long time. Much of the blockchain invention may be traced back to the 1990s cypherpunk movement. However, it's important to remember that blockchain was just created and used for the first time in 2008/09.
That was only around 12 or 13 years ago.
To put this in context, the internet's first application was in the 1970s, when academia and military networks began to use it to communicate, and it wasn't until the early 2000s that popular use truly took off, thanks to increased broadband and mobile penetration.
By comparison, Blockchain technology and the cryptocurrency sector are still in their infancy.
The Web of Space
Another key thing to analyze is the present rate of change in the sector. Because of the rapid improvements in digital technology and communication alongside nature of blockchain technology, the field moves at a swift rate. It can be difficult to keep up with the pace.
Even though blockchains have only been around for a dozen years, a lot has happened in that time. Ethereum and smart contract capabilities have spawned a slew of new sectors and businesses, some of which are real innovators and others that aren't.
Defi, DAOs, NFTs, and digital identity are just a few examples of these sectors. It will be useful to break down the industry's future into these key areas of innovation and determine where they are possibly to go in order to estimate its future.
The blockchain sector does not operate in a vacuum, which is the third and final key point.
Artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, the Internet of Things (think smart cars, robotics, and biometrics), 5G networks, 3D printing, and GPT-3 are all convergent with the blockchain domain. Web 3.0 is the name given to these improvements, which are also called 'The Spatial Web.'
We can't just look at the blockchain industry in isolation to get a sense of where it's going. We must also consider how it will interact with other technologies and what breakthroughs may result as a result of these interactions.
Given this present condition of affairs, the following article examines some of the most important areas of crypto innovation today, with an emphasis on their future.
It will then conclude by analyzing blockchain technology in the context of 'The Spatial Web,' and seeking to see the broader image in which blockchains will play an important role.
Finance that is decentralized
Defi (Decentralised finance) is a catch-all word for a variety of financial apps that use cryptocurrency's programmable characteristics - smart contracts - to innovate wealth management.
Financial instruments developed on blockchains do not rely on intermediaries such as banks, brokerages, or exchanges, which is an important breakthrough. This has a number of advantages:
· giving unbanked people with new ways to get money (estimated to be over 1 billion people)
· supporting innovations such as decentralized stablecoins and synthetic tokens by providing access to new types of yield
· lowering the entry barriers for early-stage investment
Stablecoins are a DeFi innovation that tries to overcome the volatility problem that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have. (This is the subject of a different article). DAI is the most well-known example, a cryptocurrency that employs smart contracts to keep its value as close to $1 as feasible. This has given the crypto sector a firm currency choice, boosting adoption and further innovation.
Synthetic tokens are a derivative (a financial product whose value is determined by an underlying variable).
These tokens can oversee any market index and provide exposure to last unattainable risk levels. These are some interesting concepts for synthetic tokens:
· Tokens that keep account of how many times an app has been downloaded.
· Tokens based on non-tradable price indices
· Tokens that track how DeFi goods are used in the future
The biggest critique of DeFi is that blockchain transactions are irreversible, making it difficult to undo improper transactions. Regulation is additionally difficult because to the industry's decentralization and private nature.
CBDCs are an important field of regulation. Bank of England Eighty percent of the world's central banks are now researching digital currencies, and the People's Bank of China is now analyzing its digital Yuan.
CBDCs aren't strictly a direct threat to DeFi, but they are a result of governments catching up to the innovation that DEFI has sparked. They are hybrids that cherry-pick the aspects of crypto that governments find helpful, such as traceability and money supply control, while ignoring those that question its position, such as non permission and borderless transactions.
DeFi is without a doubt one of the most important areas in the blockchain business right now. A total of $11 billion has been deposited in numerous decentralized finance protocols. Expect to see increasing liquidation and acceptance as the space matures and becomes more trustworthy, leading to further innovation and the potential for global improved access to cash and high-interest rates.
Autonomous Decentralized Organizations
DAOs, or Decentralised Autonomous Organizations, are organizations that are powered by smart contracts that are represented by the rules of the members of the organization and are not controlled by central governance. The most well-known of these is The DAO, which was intended to be a new sort of Venture Fund administered by its members but was eventually hacked and closed, as we discussed in post earlier.
Long-held views about corporate organization and democracy are being challenged by DAOs. They do away with the necessity for reliable, trustworthy third parties to facilitate transactions. Transactions become more easy and efficient as a result of this.
However, Ethereum's disastrous experience shows that DAOs are just codified rules that can be exploited if the logic of the code can be exploited.
DAOs do not change human nature; rather, they are an attempt to alleviate governance challenges, and as such, they have a long way to go to truly succeed.
MakerDAO, which employs the paradigm to enable community governance of the generation of DAI, a stablecoin soft-pegged to the US Dollar, is the best example of a working DAO. DAI is created by pledging cryptocurrency as collateral, which is held in a CDP vault.
It's a complicated concept that hasn't been without its difficulties, but the amount of value locked in DAI is growing all the time, as is the value of the MKR token, which is used to pay stability fees and ensure DAI maintains its peg.
MakerDAO is on its way to complete autonomy, demonstrating the actual potential of DAOs and setting the bar for others.
Identity, NFTs, and Supply Chains
NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, are a sort of cryptographic token that uses blockchain technology. Unlike Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, which are fungible (meaning they can be readily exchanged for other tokens), NFTs represent something unique and so are not interchangeable.
NFTs are used to generate digital scarcity and power programs that help people buy and sell art, collectibles, and other digital objects online. The blockchain-based game 'crypto cats' is a well-known example. NFTs are in-game assets that the user (rather than the developer) controls and may be exchanged on third-party marketplaces.
The market for NFT collectibles is growing, with isolated examples fetching exorbitant prices. Banksy recently burnt a piece of art named Morons and then used the live stream to create an NFT. It was bought for $380,000.
Whether it's the NBA selling NFTs of legendary video snippets or bands tokenizing albums and VIP events, the music and sports sectors are using NFT to flip conventional engagement models on their heads.
Nike holds a patent for blockchain-based NFT-sneakers called 'CryptoKicks,' and Decentraland, a crypto version of Minecraft where NFTs are used to purchase virtual real estate, are two examples of how NFTs are being used. MANA, Decentraland's token, has a market capitalization of roughly $225 million, up more than fivefold since its inception in 2017.
Supply chain management is one frontier that NFTs are being used to investigate. NFTs can theoretically be used to represent both physical and digital items. The global supply chain's trading and administration of goods are yet unaffected by crypto, and might be made far more efficient. NFTs are likely to be a part of supply chains that use blockchain technology to manage them.
One of the most obvious use cases for blockchains is identity and provenance, which is undoubtedly an important area for the technology's development. The Covid-19 pandemic has illustrated how unsuitable for purpose the current fiat infrastructure employed to manage our increasingly linked society is.
Our management of these systems has to improve, from failing to detect and trace covid carriers to obtaining poor PPE equipment. Blockchains may be able to help with this advancement by providing a mechanism of consistently and securely storing data.
Digital identities based on blockchain technology could provide a secure way to track immunization records. They might also power digital passports that aid in tracking and tracing as well as border control measures.
As previously stated, digital identities can be extended to include physical items in addition to humans. Our ability to sell things and track their provenance may be drastically altered as a result of this expansion.
To fully grasp this potential, we must first analyze blockchains in their appropriate context, which brings us neatly to Web 3.0 and the Internet of Things.
The intertwined future of Web 3.0 and Blockchain
Web 3.0, often known as “The Spatial Web,” is a collection of technological advancements that are becoming increasingly interconnected. Artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, the Internet of Things, 5G networks, 3D printing, and many other developments are among them.
Imagine a world where AI systems manage our transportation, intuitively show information through augmented reality glasses, and 3D print products depending on our wants, all of which are connected via 5G networks and synced via a blockchain. Isn't that fantastic?
Interoperability is a critical component of this from the standpoint of blockchain. This term refers to a computer system's or software's ability to share and use data.
A shared view of the truth will be required for the technologies stated in the preceding example to become increasingly integrated. These technologies will not integrate and be used to their full capacity unless there is a shared concept of reality.
This networked infrastructure is powered by Distributed Ledger Technology (also known as blockchains). Blockchains provide a decentralized mechanism to securely and reliably store data. Blockchains provide a way to create a globally shared ledger of records, events, and transactions that is essentially unhackable.
Technologies may begin to safely communicate with one another based on this basis of data integrity, without having to worry about hostile third parties or contradicting records. This opens up a world of possibilities, and we're only scratching the surface.
Ethereum and other blockchain technologies are still struggling to grow and meet the demand for a worldwide shared record system. You can be confident that blockchain technology will play a vital role as we go into the next era of the web.
After reading this article and the Crypto Basics part, you should be able to appreciate the potential of this technology, learn more about how it works, what areas it is pioneering in, and, most importantly, begin to imagine what is still to come.
Disclaimer:
The views in this article only represent the author's personal views, and do not constitute investment advice on this platform. This platform does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of the information in the article, and will not be liable for any loss caused by the use of or reliance on the information in the article.
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