Prime 5 Crypto Tendencies in 2021

It’s protected to say that 2021 was a very explosive yr for all the cryptocurrency market. It was additionally one the place notably sturdy narratives have been centered round totally different segments – a yr stuffed with plot adjustments and numerous metagames.

With this mentioned, as we strategy the final hours of the yr, we’ve taken the freedom to cherrypick 5 of essentially the most influential tendencies through the previous 12 months. The beneath are available in no specific rating as all of them excelled in particular areas.

So, with out additional ado, let’s dive in.

Memecoins

Though some would possibly argue that memecoins got here to prominence in 2020 through the so-called DeFi summer time, they objectively took the middle stage in 2021 – on just a few events.

In contrast to different tendencies, although, memecoins have been seemingly propelled by a government – so to talk. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, in addition to TIME Journal’s Individual of the 12 months, singlehandedly drove large consciousness in the direction of what’s unanimously referred to as the king of memecoins – Dogecoin.

Dogecoin (DOGE) may need began out as a joke years in the past however is now one of many world’s main cryptocurrency tasks with a whole bunch of hundreds of HODLers and one of many strongest communities. What’s extra, with the obvious backing of Musk, DOGE will, sooner or later, be accepted by Tesla for a few of its merchandise.

The cryptocurrency is up virtually 4,000% on the time of this writing, regardless that it’s buying and selling at 76% beneath its all-time excessive reached in Might.

However what Dogecoin did was excess of simply a rise in worth. It impressed a whole motion of memecoins, a whole lot of which got here with alarmingly related functionalities that flooded the market within the months to come back.

One of the vivid examples is Shiba Inu’s SHIB token. The self-proclaimed “Dogecoin killer” is without doubt one of the best-performing cryptocurrencies of the yr, with a number of tales of individuals investing as little as $100 a yr in the past and turning into multi-millionaires. Regardless that it’s 60% beneath its all-time excessive, proper now, SHIB is up 44,636,200% up through the previous 12 months alone.

What’s extra, memecoins turned a family title in addition to a viable market-placement technique. The rise of Doge and Shiba confirmed that there’s a transparent product-market match for cash named after in style canine breeds and lots of groups began exploring numerous avenues and creating what many contemplate to be respectable enterprise platforms.

If one factor is obvious now, it’s that everybody takes memes unironically, mockingly.

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)

Non-fungible tokens have been on the forefront of the cryptocurrency business for fairly a while now. It’s additionally one of many tendencies that’s accountable for an entire lot of newcomers within the discipline.

One motive for it could be that the common Joe doesn’t affiliate NFTs with advanced financial fashions and makes an attempt to disrupt financial insurance policies. For most individuals, NFTs are simply verifiably scarce representations of digital artwork which are, properly, enjoyable.

The place else are you able to see a digital drawing that may actually be right-click saved as a JPEG promote for $8 million?

In fact, it’s not that easy – NFTs carry the digital signature of the artist and might’t presumably be reproduced, making each basically solely distinctive except it’s been created in multitude upon era.

Maybe essentially the most impactful story on the matter of NFTs is the astronomical sale of Beeple’s The First 5,000 Days. This can be a conjunction of 5,000 items of digital artwork that Mike Winkelmann (a.ok.a Beeple) had produced over 5,000 days. The piece offered for a whopping $69 million at a Christie’s public sale and made him one of many three most dear residing artists.

From Crypto Punks, Rocks, Bored Apes Yacht Membership, Rumble Kongs, and Hashmass to literal numbers written on white backgrounds, NFTs are everywhere. What’s much more fascinating is that this development doesn’t appear to decelerate in any respect. Whereas it’s true that retail curiosity in NFTs has declined, it’s additionally essential to notice that these tokens are a cornerstone of our subsequent point out – the metaverse and the play-to-earn mannequin.

Play-to-Earn (P2E)

Blockchain and on-line gaming are two fields, touted to go hand-in-hand for fairly a while. All through the previous few years, we noticed just a few video games that have been underpinned by distributed ledger know-how, however up till this level, nothing actually took off.

Nicely, this all modified in 2021, and particularly in late Q3 and This autumn. It was no aside from Axie Infinity that led the march all year long. One in every of its native tokens – AXS – elevated from roughly round $0.5 and reached an all-time excessive of $160 in November. On the time of this writing, the token is up virtually 17,000% up to now 12 months alone, regardless of buying and selling properly beneath its ATH. Furthermore, a plot of land in Axie Infinity’s universe offered for $2.3 million not so way back.

The whole P2E style, although, took off after Fb revealed that it might rebrand to Meta and turn into an lively participant in constructing the metaverse. As soon as that occurred, it was on. The play-to-earn discipline took off and remains to be raging on the time of this writing.

Initiatives reminiscent of The Sandbox and Decentraland cracked properly into the highest 50, and the latter even surpassed Axie Infinity as the largest gaming venture.

Now, evidently the idea of the metaverse is throughout us, and the hype is actual. Tons of of groups are racing to supply a blue-chip blockchain sport that will win the participant base and turn into a longtime chief. Possibly 2022 will see that taking place, who is aware of?

Binance Good Chain Mania

If final yr we noticed the DeFi summer time on Ethereum, then this yr we noticed the identical insanity unravel on the Binance Good Chain (BSC).

The demand for decentralized apps turned so excessive that it actually clogged the Ethereum community. Person-intensive processes elevated the load to an extent the place individuals needed to pay a whole bunch of {dollars} in transaction charges, making it nearly unimaginable for smaller buyers to take part within the discipline of decentralized finance (DeFi).

Because the yield farming metagame was rising in recognition, although, alternate options began to pop up in goals of grabbing all these annoyed DeFi degens that have been uninterested in paying large bucks on Ethereum.

That is how the Binance Good Chain got here to prominence. Within the second week of February, the distinctive addresses on BSC tripled. In March, the rely of transactions on PancakeSwap (the biggest DEX on BSC) was greater than that on all the Ethereum community for a span of a 24-hour interval.

In April, the whole worth locked in PancakeSwap reached $5.5 billion, quickly surpassing the TVL in Uniswap.

All of the tasks that we noticed being constructed on Ethereum have been all of the sudden replicated by different groups on BSC, however, as historical past would go on to point out, it was to no avail. The broad majority of them are at the moment method underwater because the hype round BSC slowly pale away. Regardless that the distinctive deal with rely continues to develop, it’s nowhere close to the temp it had again in that interval.

It’s additionally price mentioning that this complete development is a part of the explanation why Binance Coin (BNB) is up over 1200% up to now 12 months as properly.

Laser Eyes: Bitcoin to $100K

Laser eyes are a Bitcoin-centered development that additionally noticed a whole lot of hype all year long. Principally, somebody got here up with the concept to place laser eyes on their Twitter profile image and preserve it that method till BTC’s value reaches $100,000.

A large variety of individuals, together with MicroStrategy’s CEO Michael Saylor, US Senator Cynthia Lummis, and even our personal potato, succumbed to the concept and thus participated in what gave the impression to be one of many largest actions of the yr.

To this date, Michael Saylor has his Twitter profile image carrying laser eyes, inflicting many to imagine that he’s executing the very best conviction commerce on Wall Avenue.

In any case, the development was considerably short-lived as a result of quickly after it began, the value of bitcoin crashed by roughly 50%, inflicting some to invest that this specific hype was considerably of a prime sign.