In this episode of 0xResearch, Dan Smith, Sam, Matt, Pibblez & Westie, researchers at Blockworks host an analyst hour to debate which projects, personalities, and market events should be in crypto's 2022 Mount Rushmore!
Read our notes below to learn more.
Starbucks Odyssey
Excited to participate in the Starbucks Odyssey program and earn stamps which could be worth a lot of money on secondary markets like OpenSea.
Starbucks has a successful rewards program and hoping to collect stamps and potentially win a trip to Costa Rica to visit coffee farms.
Cult of Starbucks and the power of the Polygon Business Development team is a good combination.
Names We Won’t Forget
The main characters of the CT did not have a good year including Danielle Sesta, the founder of Wonderland Time and Spell who happened to have been close with a known criminal (Sifu) in the space.
Do Kwon had his Twitter comebacks early in the year and became too cocky. Terra collapsed in a death spiral.
Su Zhu who was a big voice on CT had to file for bankruptcy of his hedge fund 3AC.
SBF, founder of FTX and Alameda Research was arrested recently for fraud committed at FTX.
Yuga Labs
$APE launched in April and saw significant success with BAYC NFTs reaching 160 ETH.
The launch of apecoin staking and the hiring of the former CEO of Blizzard to lead Yuga Labs were also significant events for the cryptocurrency.
Some have lost money on $APE but overall those involved in the BAYC ecosystem have made significant profits.
ETH Merge & Burn
Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake has resulted in a significant decrease in emissions and has taken millions of dollars of sell pressure off the market.
There is a disagreement among some claiming proof-of-stake to be centralized and that a few people hold power.
Biggest impact of the transition has been the removal of $ETH sell pressure from the market.
$1.9B in Bridge Hacks
Crypto has lost $1.9b this year from bridge hacks.
These hacks should be remembered and not forgotten due to the inherent risk involved with using smart contracts and storing funds in DEXs.
There will be better solutions in the future.
Tornado Cash Ban
In 2022, the use of decentralized smart contract technology Tornado Cash had a significant impact on the industry.
The dev Alexi was arrested and two-thirds of the total blocks proposed on the beacon chain have been censored due to their involvement with Tornado Cash.
The Launch of Canto
The value of Canto increased significantly within a couple of weeks of its launch and Westie was one of the first to bridge to Canto and was euphoric.
Solana and Saga Phone
The launch of the Saga phone, a crypto-native phone that includes a Phantom wallet happened this year and it has the ability to play the native Solana games on its own OS.
Solana network has implemented priority fees and had a hard fork in June and the Saga phone is a step forward for the entire crypto ecosystem.
Not optimistic about the phone's chances of success due to competition from established companies like Apple but they do respect the efforts of the Solana foundation.
Layer 2 Adoption
Layer 2s have seen the success of Arbitrum and Optimism specifically in relation to their market share of TVL and the adoption of their specific applications, such as GMX on Arbitrum.
Arbitrum has the potential for even more adoption and development in 2023.
There is a possibility of Optimistic Roll-Ups competing with ZK Roll-Ups in 2023, and the potential for Optimism and Arbitrum to maintain their first-mover advantage.
DeFi’s Expansion
There have been new products on DeFi that can be used for trading including leverage and spot trading
Crypto market has come a long way even in the bear market and expects it to continue to improve in the future.
Zk-Tech is Heating Up
Aztec has been great advancements in ZK tech enabling privacy in DeFi.
StarkX has seen success with Dydx and Immutable X and will continue to see adoption despite the emergence of ZK EVMs.
The cost and hardware requirements for running ZK technology are decreasing while proof generation speeds are improving.
Excited to watch the development of ZK EVMs in 2022 and thinks it could be a turning point in the industry.
ZK EVMs have the potential to steal market share from first movers like Optimism and Arboretum if they are successfully implemented.
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MEV-Boost & Flashbots
MEV-Boost is a proof of stake update for Flashbots that has received a lot of attention for its data and market creation between Builders, relays, validators, and other parties.
There have been concerns about censorship in the past, but the Builder's Market has become more competitive with more Builders creating high-value blocks.
It is still not widely known to the general public or even within the crypto community, as it is a technical field that requires a deep understanding of the blockchain and how to communicate with it.
Moon Birds and Limit Break Digi’s
Moon Birds saw a rapid increase in value and a billion-dollar valuation within its first few weeks.
Limit Break raised 200 million dollars to build a gaming application on crypto and saw the value of its NFTs increase from free to tens of thousands of dollars.
Founder of Limit Break, Gabriel, is planning a free mint on a Super Bowl commercial next year.
Limit Break’s NFT Collection, DigiDaigaku
Institutional and Web Adoption
Narrative around the institutional adoption of crypto has changed in recent years.
Companies such as Starbucks and JP Morgan have embraced crypto. Investment firms and Fortune 500 companies such as Instagram and Twitter are also interested in the industry.
Mainstream media outlets are now covering the industry and it is no longer a niche market.
JP Morgan recognized that the collapse of FTX was due to centralized institutions and not because of DeFi.
There is a shift in sentiment among institutions towards the crypto industry.
The AppChain Thesis and Improved Economics
Cosmos has seen success with Dydx wanting to move out of Ethereum to become an app chain and the creation of native USDC on Cosmos app chains by Circle.
Importance of better tokenomics was seen in 2022 with different projects.
There will be competition between Cosmos' vision of multiple monolithic L1s connected through a communication protocol and ZK EVMs with L3 ecosystems built on top of them.
Crypto Data Tools
There has been an increase in data availability in the crypto industry with products like DeFi llama, Nansen, Arkham Intelligence, Flipside, and Dune making data more accessible.
Excited about the ability to track the health and profitability of different protocols on a block-by-block basis.
LayerZero Labs
The launch of Stargate and Layer Zero Labs has gained attention in the market.
The launch of Stargate was notable because it occurred at a time when the market was experiencing a rally, and the price of $STG increased significantly after its launch.
Stargate and Layer Zero Labs could improve cross-chain communication and fund transfers.
Layer Zero has a concept for decentralization, it is currently centralized, but it is hoped that they will continue to build towards decentralization in the future.
Sudoswap
Sudoswap is a platform for liquidity and trading of NFTs.
During the Sudo season, people were buying and selling NFTs on Sudoswap and it was a fun and exciting time.
Sudoswap was significant because it eliminated the need to pay royalties when selling NFTs, which sparked a debate about the sustainability of royalty models for NFT creators.
Do Kwon
The failure of $UST was a good thing because it helped wash out the leverage in the system.
Do Kwon might not have had bad intentions and was simply trying to build something ahead of its time.
Decentralized stablecoins will eventually see a resurgence as the need for decentralized money becomes more imperative in the future.
Decentralized stablecoins will be a significant narrative in the next few years as people try to build a decentralized coin that is scalable.
Currently wary of decentralized stablecoins but eventually smarter people will build better models for a decentralized future.
THORChain’s Synth Utilization
Thorchain’s Savers program has seen great adoption and an increase in utilization.
The program has seen a large number of unique Savers and has attracted around $7 million in investments primarily in $BTC and $ETH.
Alt L1 Thesis vs Ethereum’s Ecosystem
Multi-chain thesis in 2021 was completely a different perspective compared to now.
L1s may not be dead and could potentially come back in the future but not to the same extent as before.
Bitcoin’s Security Model Controversy
There has been controversy over the sustainability of the security model of Bitcoin.
Some believe that the network will eventually need to rely on transaction fees to sustain itself as the block reward decreases, but others disagree and think that the network can continue to be secured through other means.
There is debate over whether changes need to be made to the inflation schedule or block size to make the network more sustainable in the long term.
There is also disagreement over whether increasing the usage of the lightning network or maintaining the current system will be the best solution for securing the network.
What Will Outperform in 2023?
ZK EVMs will do well.
Liquid staking derivatives will outperform.
DEXs and aggregator platforms like Curve will do well.
The token design is important for the success of a DEX.
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TODAY'S EDITION IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY BITTICKER
BitTicker is the real-time cryptocurrency ticker featuring up to 12 tokens.
Easily connect from PC or mobile to choose your tokens & fine-tune your features. BitTicker updates pricing through CoinGecko every minute, keeping you current.
Act now, click the link below to order your BitTicker today.