The five main trends of cryptocurrency and blockchain of 2018

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This year several trends have taken over the cryptic world. The following are some of the most important trends: will they continue in 2019?

In 2018, Tether became more than just a stablecoin when it became one of the largest cryptocurrency periods. Over the course of the year, Tether Limited has dramatically increased the size of dollar currency reserves, which has enabled millions of dollars of Tether tokens to be created.

This decision allowed Tether to go through the ranks: at the end of 2017, the currency was in 27th place and had a market capitalization of $ 1.4 billion. Now, at the end of 2018, Tether is in the top ten, ranking at n. 8 with a market capitalization of nearly $ 2 billion.

But despite Tether's success in the market, currency has received much criticism. The halter has become controversial due to its lack of transparency, highly centralized reserves and relatively low price stability.

These problems have led to an increase in competitors' stablecoins, such as Circle & # 39; s USDCoin and TrustToken TrueUSD. These and many other coins promise to improve the Tether model in various ways – and some investors predict that stablecoin will become even more popular in 2019.

2. The disclosure of DPOS

After Ethereum suffered bottlenecks in 2017, the inefficiencies of decentralized networks have become clear. This problem provided opportunities for blockchains with an alternative approach to getting on the stage. EOS, which launched its mainnet in June, quickly disseminated the DFA (Proof-of-Stake) Delegate Consensus Model.

DPOS counts on a few block producers, while most of the other consensus mechanisms are based on countless nodes. On EOS, the money holders elect 21 producers of blocks that determine the course of the blockchain. In exchange for this privilege, block makers must provide computing power for the entire EOS network. For the most part, this model is fast and energy efficient.

Although EOS is controversial due to the level of centralization employed (which led to frozen funds and collusion charges), EOS has become highly influential. TRON, another important DFA blockchain, launched its mainnet in June and became particularly notable thanks to the acquisition of BitTorrent.

Lisk also followed the trend and launched its mainnet in August. In the meantime, Qtum, a former DPOS chain, has remained high profile and formed a major partnership in 2018. The past DPOS projects of Daniel Larimer, Steem and Bitshares, have also remained popular. As such, it seems likely that many other blockchains will implement or innovate on DPOS in the future.

3. Dramatic development of dApp

The number of decentralized applications (or dApps) increased dramatically during 2018. CryptoKitties, a popular collector's game, was largely responsible for the spread of dApps at the end of 2017. Although no other dApp has replicated the brief viral success of the game, CryptoKitties seems to have given way to a trend, since spring and early summer brought a record number of new apps.

According to the state of DApps, the number of decentralized applications has almost tripled in the course of the year. In December 2017, there were 835 dApps and now there are 2281. Increases in users are more difficult to measure, but dApp seem to be very interesting for developers who are creating them.

It seems likely that more dApps will be introduced in 2019. In addition, new blockchains for the development of dApp will probably also emerge. Currently, two platforms (Ethereum and EOS) are responsible for most of the dApps, but even competitors like TRON and NEO show great promises. These and other blockchains could introduce many new and exciting dApps next year.

4. Payment and settlement networks

Centralized payment processors and commercial services have added cryptocurrency support for some time. However, in 2018, a new trend emerged: decentralized payment and settlement networks. The launch of Lightning Network started the trend in January 2018. In essence, Lightning promises to allow users to execute fast and inexpensive transactions.

Although the Lightning network is still finding its feet, numerous competing platforms have already emerged. Stellar has released a preview of a network of similar settlements called Starlight in October. In the same month, Blockstream released Liquid Network, a semi-decentralized payment network for trade. Also xRapid by Ripple, a cross-border payment solution aimed at financial institutions, was launched in the fall.

The particular details of these networks vary, but they all share the fact that they are not traditional payment platforms and do not hold funds centrally. It remains to be seen whether these new payment networks will become popular in the next year, as they are even less accessible than traditional payment platforms.

5. Scalability improvements

In 2018, slow network speeds (and to a lesser extent the high transaction fees) continued to be a problem for many blockchains. In particular, the planned scalability solutions of Ethereum have remained in development for the entire year, giving other platforms the opportunity to provide competing solutions.

Platforms like EOS and Zilliqa have promised faster operations and better application performance, which has said that in recent months EOS has faced efficiency problems. Other platforms have focused on reducing transaction costs: Monero and Zcash have drastically reduced their commissions in the fall.

These are just some of the scalability platforms: almost all the major blockchains and cryptocurrencies have considered the problem at some point. Scalability is becoming important as blockchains grow in popularity, and the subject will surely be in everyone's mind next year.

Conclusion

2018 has introduced several interesting trends and many of these trends will continue throughout 2019. However, any platform that pursues these trends will have to accomplish something important. Stablecoins and DPOS blockchain will have to find a way to gain the trust of the crypto community, while payment networks and dApps will have to attract users rather than developers. These goals are, however, close at hand, and 2019 looks promising enough in many areas.

Disclaimer: the information contained in this document is provided without considering personal circumstances, therefore it should not be interpreted as financial advice, investment or offer recommendation or solicitation for cryptocurrency transactions.


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