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What are the things you always wanted to know about the future of Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi and the cryptocurrency industry in general but didn’t know who to ask?
Finder’s latest cryptocurrency forecast report, which reviews 30 industry experts, provides some answers.
Some of the most noteworthy findings, aside from buying, selling, or the HODL bitcoin came in response to a question about blockchain dominance and competition in decentralized finance (DeFi).
We asked our experts: What will the DeFi landscape look like in a year?
The future of the blockchain: destination unknown
This big question encompasses many small questions to which there are no decisive answers, such as:
We are going to see Ethereum swallow all the competition through the power of its network effects and composability?
Can Bitcoin realistically compete as a protocol rather than as an asset via RSK smart contracts and other sidechains?
Also: When will “The Ethereum killers“They show up and will they be able to put the knife in?
It also means forming an opinion on how blockchain interoperability could affect terrain and asking questions like:
What are the odds of some hitherto unknown settlement layer stealing the action?
Are the different levels of settlement intended to be competitive or can they be complementary?
The increase of blockchain interoperability change the picture, and could it counterintuitively end up encouraging the emergence of a single dominant base layer? How many levels of regulation can the market support and how could the trajectory of blockchain adoption change over time?
And what about topics like cryptocurrency regulations and how the technology is used?
What is the likelihood and potential impact of regulatory intervention in decentralized finance?
Can zombie chains come to life?
Will users interact directly with dapps or is the final game one where they are mostly just centralized financial institutions interacting with each other across the blockchain?
Then there are the questions that are almost unanswered.
How do you explain crypto tribalism?
How do our prejudices, blind spots and gaps in knowledge cloud our judgment?
We didn’t ask any of these little questions directly. We only asked the big questions – What will the DeFi landscape Does it seem like 12 months have passed since now? – and then invited our experts to elaborate if they wanted to. It is here, in processing, that these little questions that many cryptocurrency enthusiasts may have always wondered have been answered.
See related article: Is DeFi’s Breathtaking Rise Just Like The ICO Bubble?
While there was no clear consensus on the big issue, there was a lot of agreement on some of these small questions and several common themes emerged.
With so much uncertainty about the future of blockchain, it’s worth taking a deeper look at some of the small questions to find the undercurrents of agreement among all differences of opinion.
What do Ethereum Experts Say?
One point of broad agreement was the inclination towards a multipolar world of interoperable blockchain ecosystems and cross-chain transfers, with or without a larger, dominant chain. Ethereum has been more commonly referred to as that dominant chain.
However, several panel members who responded “Ethereum dominates” made it clear that they expected it to remain the largest of several protocols, rather than dominate as one protocol.
The mostly shared view of a multi-chain world was tempered by the general agreement that there probably wasn’t room for too many of them.
As suggested by Gavin Brown of the University of Liverpool, effective blockchain interoperability doesn’t necessarily mean blockchain for everyone. On the contrary, it could actually help limit the number of different protocols that can be implemented.
“Historic technological innovations are littered with examples of a shake-out phase and final coalescence around a dominant technology protocol,” Brown said. “Interoperability is based on the dominance of one (Ethereum) or a few rival blockchain platforms.”
The market will naturally merge around fewer protocols rather than more, predicted Jeremy Cheah, an associate professor of crypto finance and digital investment at Nottingham Trent University in England.
“There will be many DeFi ecosystems, but there will be leaders because of the problem with trust and ease of use,” Cheah said. “[The] most of the users are herd followers. For example, some of the major cryptocurrencies will be leading, so there will be a number of separate but popular and widely used DeFi ecosystems. Nobody will be able to learn all the different types of ecosystems: information overload. “
Edward Hickman, founder and CEO of Anatha.io, had a different view, noting the potential for perfect interoperability not only to break down some of the technical barriers between ecosystems, but also to break down the perception that different ecosystems also exist and replace them. with the simpler track of on-chain versus off-chain.
“Interoperability means that users will move freely from one network to another, often without realizing it. So while there are already many systems emerging for the end user, it will feel more like they are simply part of a larger macro ecosystem, ”Hickman said.
A crystal ball on Bitcoin, Ethereum and DeFi?
Overall, the zero-sum maximalist views of cryptocurrency that are relatively common on social media were nowhere to be found, and most panelists were optimistic about both Bitcoin and Ethereum, often for different reasons. Blockchain interoperability was a common theme.
“I think there would be some widely used DeFi ecosystems, perhaps with Ethereum still dominant,” said Dr Iwa Salami, senior lecturer in financial law and regulation at the University of East London. “There may also be the development of interoperability and interactions between DeFi ecosystems and possibly the migration of resources through DeFi ecosystems.”
He added: “There is likely to be continued interest in bitcoin given the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on traditional capital markets. Investors would continue to look for other assets (such as bitcoin) as a hedge against it. inflation and to protect their assets from devaluation. This is likely to drive up the price of bitcoin. Also, with the growing popularity of DeFi, this is likely to increase the price of cryptocurrencies and in particular bitcoin and ethereum. “
At the same time, Salami noted that “DeFi is likely to continue growing over the next 12 months for the following reasons: DeFi has the potential to facilitate financial inclusion by opening up access to financial products to $ 1.7 billion. non-bank people of the world as it allows virtually anyone to get a loan. This can benefit small and medium-sized businesses and individuals without a credit history, as it does not use credit scoring, which inhibits access to finance in formal banking systems … closely related to this point is also that DeFi can be adopted in developing countries as a way to protect themselves from inflation. It can allow people in those countries with high inflation to access stable resources to preserve their purchasing power and earn interest at the same time. “
Thomson Reuters technologist and futurist Joseph Raczynski said: “While I think Ethereum will dominate, there will also be some others that will have a place … it’s also healthy for the market to have several.”
Unfortunately there is no room here to unpack all the other questions in the “Finder Cryptocurrency Predictions Report” with a similar level of detail.
But among the multitudes of mini-questions behind it – What will the DeFi landscape look like in 12 months? – the challenge of understanding the answers in a multiple-choice format and the additional in-depth commentators who volunteered around that question seemed worth examining a little more detail.
You can find the full report here: https://www.finder.com/cryptocurrency-predictions
