Predictions For Blockchain In 2022
Blockchain is one of the most discussed technologies in the world of business today. Blockchain technology can drive major changes and create new opportunities across all industries — from financial services and cybersecurity to infrastructure and healthcare.
How Blockchain Works
A blockchain is a decentralized database — an electronically distributed ledger or list of records that is accessible to multiple users. Blockchains use cryptography to record, process, and verify every transaction, making them safe, permanent, secure, and transparent.
Recent Past
Blockchain-based startups raised approximately $524 million in venture funding in 2021 against a fraction of this in 2020. The market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies reached $3 trillion in 2021 for the first time. Who can claim to have foreseen such developments?
Looking into the future is difficult. Nevertheless, an attempt must be made to predict looking at the steep line only looking up, in the graph.
Future of Blockchain and its Predictions
1. Adoption by Institutions
Institutional investors and large companies have shown their interest in digital assets known over the course of the past year. These include hedge funds, asset managers, and family offices, but also pension funds or institutions such as the Sparkasse or Raiffeisen-Volksbank. JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and other major banks are beginning to develop a range of offerings around crypto investments. Tech companies such as Microstrategy and Tesla hold billions of dollars in Bitcoins to fight the expansion of the money supply, which has already led to relatively high inflation rates all over the world, during the past year.
With regard to the adoption of blockchain by multinational corporations, Zuckerberg’s Meta goes one step further by declaring itself one of the future key players of the metaverse. Furthermore, we will see increased mergers and acquisitions. For example, PayPal acquired the startup called Curv (custody and IT security technology in the field of crypto assets) and Coinbase has acquired the company Unbound Security (custody technology and focus on cryptography).
2. Blockchain meets the Internet of Things
Blockchain technology can stabililize the performance of complex Internet of Things (IoT) systems ensuring its information’s safety and authenticity by quickly and securely storing the exchange protocols and the results of operations from different devices in its decentralized system. Even if there is a case of hacking of some devices, it will not affect the safety of the entire system.
One reason that blockchain’s encrypted and trustless nature makes it a viable option when it comes to keeping the ever-growing number of connected devices safe is security.
The compute power used to mine Bitcoins can be used, according to researchers, to safeguard smart homes from future cyber-burglars. IBM uses its gigantic cloud infrastructure to provide blockchain services for the tracking of high-value items as they move across supply chains. However, there are many (and growing) spheres where blockchain could help introduce IoT: smart energy, enhancing trust in social networks, cyber frauds, and cyber attacks, logistics, verification of serviceability of various services, authentication management, and many others
Another proposed use is that the cryptocurrencies built on blockchains would prove ideal for automated micro-transactions made between machines. As well as recording machine activity on the ledger for record-keeping and analytical purposes, machines could effectively “pay” other machines when smart machines under a single organisation interact and transact with those owned by others.
3. More sophisticated Smart Contracts
Smart contracts can become smarter. The basic logic that its code offers now could be slowly transformed into something way more complex. It can be used for negotiations to reduce the amount of time spent. The contract could work this way- if a vendor offers a product at a specific price, then another price could be offered based on that vendor’s price. This will be extended to many more factors than price, including indemnity, fallback clauses, and other various redlines and markups. In simpler words, the blockchain is programmable and rules can be built into it that execute under data-based conditions. This removes the need for advisors, consultants, and lawyers and enables companies to hastily make their way through negotiations in a much more easy way.
4. Bitcoin will touch $100,000 USD in price
Rising inflation rates across the world make scarce assets like Bitcoins (BTCs) increasingly attractive. Bitcoin is the oldest and the most decentralized, best-known cryptocurrency. Its distinctive feature compared to other cryptocurrencies is its limited supply of 21 million BTCs.
Against the backdrop of Bitcoin’s institutional adoption and the greater demand that comes with it, it is very much within the realm of possibility that the BTC price will rise to more than $100,000 USD this year.
It is believed that blockchain technology will be transformative in the tech and IT sector in the coming years, similar to what the internet did for the world back in the 90s and early 2000s.
Article References:
https://time.com/nextadvisor/investing/cryptocurrency/bitcoin-price-predictions/
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12083-021-01127-0
https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchain-startups-grow-as-global-vc-funding-generated-25-2b-in-2021
https://www.i-scoop.eu/internet-of-things-iot/blockchain-iot/
Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text above belong solely to the author, and don’t reflect views of the author’s employer, organization, committee, or other group or individual.
