Read more, think more, write more. That’s my top New Year’s resolution. As 2021 comes to an end, I’d like to dedicate my first blog to laying out my theses for 2022.
I always tell myself to stay humble and be open-minded. My crypto journey started back in 2017 but this year, 2021, was the first year I pivoted my career full-time into crypto. Although I have some experience in Web3 now, I am still a newbie, so I’d love to learn from all of you. Please feel free to reach out or comment below if you disagree with any of my opinions in this blog. Great ideas are often born from countless debates among people of different backgrounds, mindsets, and perspectives.
That said, let’s jump into my crypto theses for 2022.
Theses for 2022
I believe 2022 will be even more exciting than 2021 and 2020 combined. The key reasons include:
1) More and more talented folks are joining this revolution and building new technologies on all fronts.
2) Hence, we will see more and more interesting and innovative products emerge. These will focus on solving interoperability and scalability, as well as enable wider financial applications.
3) Previous waves of development focused primarily on core problems instead of usability. In the upcoming 2022 wave, the focus will shift toward developing more user-friendly tools to accommodate more diverse user personas and lower usability-related barriers-to-entry.
4) Finally, large amounts of capital will continue to flow into this space, further accelerating the development of Web3.
Where will the capital flow to in 2022? No one can know for sure, but based on my research, I believe we will see exciting developments in these 4 sectors:
- Decentralized stablecoins. As more players get involved in Web3, inevitably the demand for stablecoins will skyrocket. Fiat-backed stablecoins, such as USDT and USDC, come with many regulatory concerns and risks. It is important to have truly decentralized stablecoins and we are already seeing interesting development in this space such as Terra and Abracadabra. In addition to that, I am curious to see what will happen to those non fiat backed stablecoins such as OHM tokens. So far, I don’t foresee wide adoption of those stablecoins (at least not yet), and I’m personally still having a hard time understanding why that could be a better “reserve currency” than “bitcoin”. So let me know if you have an opinion.
- DAO tooling. To understand what infrastructure and tooling we will need for DAO governance, we need to first understand what a DAO really means and what it will evolve into. I won’t talk too much about that in this brief review — all I want to say is that right now nearly every single protocol claims themselves as DAO governed, which sounds great, but if we do some analysis, we will realize that the application of DAO is mostly limited to 2 types of governance — protocol building (ie. Decentraland) & venture fundraising. As more applications get built in Web 3.0, the need for “Decentralized Governance” will only increase and the current infrastructure and tooling available have many limitations. For example, proposals can take days to process and execute. This is a lot less efficient than using centralized methods. So why bother using decentralized methods? Most decisions are also limited to just yes/no outcomes. How do we increase the efficiency of the governance process and also allow for more customization in decision making? Those are the questions we need to think about and perhaps we may see emerging solutions coming out soon.
- DeFi for NFTs and the metaverse. Unlike fungible assets that are supported on many DeFi protocols, non-fungible assets can’t be used as collaterals for borrowing. They also can’t be used for staking and many other good stuff that fungible assets can be used for. This is exactly what Taker is aiming to solve. Fun, money, and ideology/mission have attracted so many people into the crypto space so far. Clearly, people have lots of fun playing DeFi and metaverse games, but NFTs and metaverse assets generally have little utility outside of their direct use case. I think 2022 will be a big year for these projects that can add utility to generally illiquid assets and Taker will be one of them. Stay tuned — we are releasing our alpha product soon!
- Finally, Layer 1 and Layer 2 ecosystems. Though we have already seen a big run-up of L1 and L2 projects in 2021, I don’t think they will slow down anytime soon. In fact, my personal prediction for the top 10 projects in 2022 by market cap would still be these Layer 1 and Layer 2 projects. Why? Crypto is all about ecosystem and community and L1/L2 blockchains have the biggest ecosystems by far. But of course, some Game-fi projects are chasing up, so watch out!
Lessons Learned in 2021
Alright, this is a long enough review so I will quickly wrap up my thoughts here by sharing some lessons I learned in 2021.
First of all, it’s never too late to do anything. It’s never too late to find your passion; it’s never too late to find someone you want to be with; and obviously it’s never too late to learn something new. And guess what — the worst case is to start over, and even that is very meaningful because you learned something new along the way and you tried before you made any decisions.
Looking back at my 2021, I’m grateful and proud that I didn’t step away from things that seemed foreign to me (both ideologies and technologies). I am also grateful that I have met a lot of great people inside and outside of my crypto network. Entering 2022, I wish myself and everyone a curious mind, a big heart and great courage to love, learn and adapt. With that, I’m sure 2022 will be another bright and interesting year.
Happy New Year my friends around the globe!