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 fascinating crypto charts of 2021: 69 of them to be precise.
Within the newest Round The Block podcast, we sit down with Elias and talk about a few of the most fascinating information factors from the yr, and what all of it means for the long run. (Excessive stage takeaways beneath)
Metaverse and sensible contract property outperform
Value isn’t every part, however the two prime performing property in 2021 are indicative of broader tendencies all year long. 2021’s greatest performing property 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 features respectively. In the meantime, platform tokens from Polygon, Terra, Solana, and Fantom, all posted 8,000% features or extra.
Provided that play-to-earn gaming had a breakout yr, and layer 1s not named Ethereum noticed sturdy adoption, these tendencies needs 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 yr, whereas it was considerably of a tough yr for Ethereum DeFi blue chips, with the DeFiPulse index down 80% over the yr vs ETH.
The worth of DeFi property doesn’t inform all the story, nevertheless. TVL of Ethereum DeFi functions confirmed great development over the yr, and the variety of distinctive Ethereum addresses interacting with DeFi protocols 4x’ed.
Regardless, ETH killers and sidechains received the yr when measured by development of general market share.
The good migration & the EVM normal
In Could, there was $200M sitting in Ethereum bridges. That quantity climbed to $20B by the top of the yr, underscoring the nice migration of worth from Ethereum to different ecosystems.
The flipside, nevertheless, is that regardless of this migration away from Ethereum, most worth nonetheless sits in EVM (Ethereum Digital Machine) suitable environments.
Keep in mind that the EVM is basically the mind of Ethereum that performs computations for the community. When different Layer 1s undertake the EVM, it makes deploying current 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 so on) counsel that a typical is forming across the EVM. This could in the end hold Ethereum because the gravitational heart of the sensible contracting world, as ETH functions and property will probably 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 utility particular blockchains which can be able to interoperating with each other.
Constructing app-specific chains previously got here with important alternative price, as a result of they had been reduce off from most liquidity and customers. With the development of Tendermint chains like Osmosis (AMM), Umee (lending), and Stargaze (NFTs), that’s changing into much less of a difficulty.
Now that these app particular chains have a widening array of use instances and liquidity that they will interoperate with, search for extra builders to reap the benefits of customizability that these chains supply in 2022.
The ENS airdrop + DAOs
In 2021, ENS reminded everybody of Web3’s native consumer acquisition technique: the airdrop.
ENS (Ethereum Title Service) addresses are greatest considered e mail addresses that you would be able to ship cash to (e.g. Jimbo.eth). After 5 years in growth, the undertaking shifted to a DAO mannequin, and airdropped ENS governance tokens to each consumer with an ENS tackle.
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 nicely orchestrated airdrop can transfer the needle.
Past ENS, DAOs had a powerful yr, evident by the rising utilization in key items of DAO infrastructure. Gnosis Secure, which is the preferred multisig pockets DAOs use to handle their treasuries, noticed 3x development 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 sturdy development as nicely.
EN-EFF-TEES
Exercise on the dominant platform for NFTs tells you all that you must know in regards to the breakout yr NFTs loved.
OG NFT CryptoPunks noticed 60x YoY development, reaching a complete quantity of 650K ETH, or $1.7B at present costs. This determine nevertheless, features a flashloan powered $500M wash sale — a strong reminder of how a lot subjectivity there’s in on-chain information.
The second most notable NFT undertaking of the yr was Bored Ape Yacht Membership, which went from a distinct segment neighborhood to the movie star NFT of selection, 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 affordable NFT within the assortment) momentarily flipped the CryptoPunks flooring.
Within the warmth of recent issuances flooding the market, and older NFT collections reaching billion greenback market caps, the typical value of NFTs altering palms did a 150x from 0.1 ETH to roughly 15 ETH by yr finish.
One of the fascinating NFT launches of the yr was Loot (coated right here), which let anybody mint 1 of 8,000 NFTs that would type the idea of a Dungeons and Dragon type RPG recreation. Preliminary pleasure was skyhigh, earlier than tapering off as time went on.
Whereas Loot’s flame could have dimmed, it was nonetheless a landmark yr for NFT primarily based gaming, with the breakaway success of Axie Infinity bringing play-to-earn and GameFi narratives to the forefront. As the info exhibits, Axie Infinity NFT quantity dwarfs that of any prior NFT primarily based recreation.
Lastly, whereas Ethereum was the middle of the NFT present, marketplaces look like arising throughout a number of chains. The info exhibits that decrease payment environments are enabling several types of consumer exercise. Solana’s Magic Eden, for instance, has extra transactions than OpenSea since customers are unencumbered by exorbitant fuel charges.
Extra in Elias’s epic thread
Past being chock-full of illuminating information factors on the yr in crypto and Web3, the complete thread underscores the great thing about on-chain information and the elevated maturity of the trade. The power for one individual to place collectively a dataset this wealthy is a testomony to all the nice information suppliers the trade now has at our disposal.
When you haven’t already, take a look at the full thread which covers Bitcoin, Ethereum, MEV, L2 adoption, ETH2, staking, Web3, memecoins, DEXes, stablecoins, and an entire lot extra.
~Written by Connor Dempsey & Justin Mart.
