As the world heads into the final months of 2022, the cryptoverse and the macroeconomic world at large find themselves deep in the trenches of a bear market. Excitement in the space is markedly down, and sentiment across all capital markets and industries is significantly lower than in recent years.
Crypto-Twitter is a shadow of what it was just 12 short months ago, with many enthusiasts having checked out or exited the space completely. It turns out that maybe, just maybe, the WAGMI (We’re All Going to Make It) believers are coming to terms with the fact that, at least for the time being, everyone might not make it.
In the midst of this, it is easy to forget the significant and incredible progress that the crypto industry has made since the downturn of the last bear market – the 2017 ICO (Initial Coin Offering) boom and bust. With the Bitcoin “Fear & Greed Index” at dizzying lows, it is completely plausible that most individuals are focusing only on the pain today versus the fruits of yesterday and the promises of tomorrow.
But true believers in the blockchain industry will view this current period as only a minor setback, if that. After all, when markets become too frothy, it is only natural that things need to reset. In the process, an industry shakeout occurs, taking out participants and projects that don’t have much substance or future. This leaves only the players that will give the industry its next round of innovations, upgrades and creations to drive industry and adoption forward.
In the meantime, it helps to focus on what has been accomplished within blockchain during these past few years and how these accomplishments have progressed the space to date. A look back
After the dust settled from the 2017 ICO boom, the crypto market saw Bitcoin collapse from a (then) all-time high of USD$19,000/BTC to around USD$3,300/BTC. After Bitcoin shed more than 80 percent of its value from its December 2017 highs, market sentiment was understandably in the dumps.
Like the current environment, the ensuing bust from five years ago shook out those projects and players that did not have the means or the value propositions to continue moving forward – and instead empowered those that did to continue building.
As the market settled, with BTC stabilizing in the short term within the USD$9,000-10,000 range, crypto began to re-awaken, lured by updates to the space and new possibilities enabled by the blockchain. Early NFTs
Long before the introduction of ape serums and NBA Top Shot, builders were already working on and releasing NFTs onto the Ethereum blockchain. While the below timeline may contain many names which are unfamiliar to the casual participant of the NFT economy, many of the projects are still popular today – including Cryptopunks (released June 2017), CryptoKitties (released November 2017), Decentraland (released January 2018) and Gods Unchained Collectibles (released December 2018).
While likely viewed as more experimental from the beginning, these NFTs set the stage for the NFT-mania that took over the crypto world for the majority of 2021 – introducing and establishing well-known collections such as Bored Apes, Meebits, Cool Cats and more.
More importantly, beyond the PFP (Profile Picture) NFTs, potential use cases for NFTs have started to take hold within and outside of the crypto industry. From luxury powerhouses (LVMH, Gucci) to retail (Starbucks, Nike, Adidas), global commercial brands are starting to wade into Web3 waters, intrigued by the promise of what NFTs could do and how to leverage them to continue to excite and build brand loyalty with the next generation of their consumers. A DeFi summer
Outside of the more consumer-friendly NFT space, the period after the initial ICO boom also eventually led us to the summer of 2020 – sometimes referred to as “DeFi Summer.” One of the key pillars of Bitcoin and blockchain technology has always been the removal of the middleman. Therefore, it was particularly exciting when the summer of 2020 saw real lending, borrowing and investing without the use of financial intermediaries. Platforms such as MakerDAO introduced concepts of collateralization of crypto capital to power lending and borrowing. New and novel financial instruments, such as flash loans, enabled innovative ways of leveraging capital and taking advantage of arbitrage opportunities.
While the introduction of such schemes has likely raised many eyebrows within and outside of the crypto world, the possibilities that these initial concepts offer provide the foundation on which to build future DeFi solutions.
In the beginning, decentralized lending and borrowing were generally limited to an […]
source Only True Blockchain Believers Will See the Current Dip as a Minor Setback to the Bull Market
Protected by Patchstack