As most of us had been having fun with some R&R over Christmas break, Coinbase Cloud protocol specialist Elias Simos was scouring the online for essentially the most attention-grabbing crypto charts of 2021: 69 of them to be precise.
Within the newest Round The Block podcast, we sit down with Elias and focus on a number of the most attention-grabbing knowledge factors from the 12 months, and what all of it means for the longer term. (Excessive degree takeaways under)
Metaverse and sensible contract belongings outperform
Worth isn’t all the pieces, however the two high performing belongings in 2021 are indicative of broader developments all year long. 2021’s greatest performing belongings had been:
- Metaverse gaming tokens
- Sensible contract platform tokens
The governance tokens of gaming worlds Axie Infinity (AXS) and The Sandbox (SAND) every posted 16,000 and 13,000 p.c good points respectively. In the meantime, platform tokens from Polygon, Terra, Solana, and Fantom, all posted 8,000% good points or extra.
On condition that play-to-earn gaming had a breakout 12 months, and layer 1s not named Ethereum noticed robust adoption, these developments ought to be of no shock. Now let’s dig a bit deeper.
The state of Layer 1s
Ethereum’s native token (ETH) did a modest 2X over the 12 months, whereas it was considerably of a tough 12 months for Ethereum DeFi blue chips, with the DeFiPulse index down 80% over the 12 months vs ETH.
The worth of DeFi belongings doesn’t inform your complete story, nonetheless. TVL of Ethereum DeFi functions confirmed great progress over the 12 months, and the variety of distinctive Ethereum addresses interacting with DeFi protocols 4x’ed.
Regardless, ETH killers and sidechains received the 12 months when measured by progress of total market share.
The good migration & the EVM commonplace
In Could, there was $200M sitting in Ethereum bridges. That quantity climbed to $20B by the top of the 12 months, underscoring the nice migration of worth from Ethereum to different ecosystems.
The flipside, nonetheless, is that regardless of this migration away from Ethereum, most worth nonetheless sits in EVM (Ethereum Digital Machine) suitable environments.
Do not forget that the EVM is actually the mind of Ethereum that performs computations for the community. When different Layer 1s undertake the EVM, it makes deploying present functions on new networks simpler for builders, along with making it simpler for customers emigrate to those new chains.
The dominance of worth on EVM suitable chains (Avalanche, Polygon, and many others) counsel that a typical is forming across the EVM. This could in the end hold Ethereum because the gravitational middle of the sensible contracting world, as ETH functions and belongings shall be natively interoperable with most different chains.
Rise of the app chains
Whereas EVM chains nonetheless dominate the panorama, the top of 2021 noticed an increase in worth on Tendermint chains. Recall that Tendermint is a typical popularized by Cosmos, that lets builders construct software particular blockchains which can be able to interoperating with each other.
Constructing app-specific chains prior to now got here with vital alternative value, as a result of they had been lower off from most liquidity and customers. With the progress of Tendermint chains like Osmosis (AMM), Umee (lending), and Stargaze (NFTs), that’s changing into much less of a problem.
Now that these app particular chains have a widening array of use instances and liquidity that they’ll interoperate with, search for extra builders to benefit from customizability that these chains provide in 2022.
The ENS airdrop + DAOs
In 2021, ENS reminded everybody of Web3’s native consumer acquisition technique: the airdrop.
ENS (Ethereum Identify Service) addresses are greatest considered electronic mail addresses which you could ship cash to (e.g. Jimbo.eth). After 5 years in improvement, the challenge shifted to a DAO mannequin, and airdropped ENS governance tokens to each consumer with an ENS deal with.
After the drop in November, consciousness of ENS and registration of .eth addresses skyrocketed.
For the reason that ENS DAO treasury collects income from new .eth registrations, income for the newly minted ENS DAO treasury ramped up considerably: one other testomony to how a lot a effectively orchestrated airdrop can transfer the needle.
Past ENS, DAOs had a robust 12 months, evident by the rising utilization in key items of DAO infrastructure. Gnosis Protected, which is the most well-liked multisig pockets DAOs use to handle their treasuries, noticed 3x progress in each the variety of Safes and transactions executed in 2021. Snapshot, a device that helps DAOs execute off-chain votes with on-chain verification, exhibited robust progress as effectively.
EN-EFF-TEES
Exercise on the dominant platform for NFTs tells you all you want to know in regards to the breakout 12 months NFTs loved.
OG NFT CryptoPunks noticed 60x YoY progress, reaching a complete quantity of 650K ETH, or $1.7B at present costs. This determine nonetheless, features a flashloan powered $500M wash sale — a strong reminder of how a lot subjectivity there may be in on-chain knowledge.
The second most notable NFT challenge of the 12 months was Bored Ape Yacht Membership, which went from a distinct segment group to the superstar NFT of alternative, together with the likes of Steph Curry, Shaq, Justin Bieber, Jimmy Fallon, Paris Hilton, amongst others. At one level the BAYC flooring (value of the most cost effective NFT within the assortment) momentarily flipped the CryptoPunks flooring.
Within the warmth of recent issuances flooding the market, and older NFT collections attaining billion greenback market caps, the typical value of NFTs altering palms did a 150x from 0.1 ETH to roughly 15 ETH by 12 months finish.
Probably the most attention-grabbing NFT launches of the 12 months was Loot (lined right here), which let anybody mint 1 of 8,000 NFTs that would type the idea of a Dungeons and Dragon model RPG sport. Preliminary pleasure was skyhigh, earlier than petering out as time went on.
Whereas Loot’s flame could have dimmed, it was nonetheless a landmark 12 months for NFT based mostly gaming, with the breakaway success of Axie Infinity bringing play-to-earn and GameFi narratives to the forefront. As the information exhibits, Axie Infinity NFT quantity dwarfs that of any prior NFT based mostly sport.
Lastly, whereas Ethereum was the middle of the NFT present, marketplaces look like bobbing up throughout a number of chains. The info exhibits that decrease payment environments are enabling various kinds of consumer exercise. Solana’s Magic Eden, for instance, has extra transactions than OpenSea since customers are unencumbered by exorbitant gasoline charges.
Extra in Elias’s epic thread
Past being chock-full of illuminating knowledge factors on the 12 months in crypto and Web3, the total thread underscores the great thing about on-chain knowledge and the elevated maturity of the trade. The flexibility for one individual to place collectively a dataset this wealthy is a testomony to all the nice knowledge suppliers the trade now has at our disposal.
In case you haven’t already, try the full thread which covers Bitcoin, Ethereum, MEV, L2 adoption, ETH2, staking, Web3, memecoins, DEXes, stablecoins, and a complete lot extra.
~Written by Connor Dempsey & Justin Mart.
