@a16zcrypto just published a 60 page report on the Global State of Crypto
It covers upcoming trends, narratives and key metrics.
I read it all so you don't have to 🧵
Chain Trends to watch
New Layers 1s: Solana, Aptos, Sui, Avalanche, Near
Application-specific: zk-Sync, Cosmos, Optimism, Polygon, Polkadot
Optimistic Rollups: Optimism, Arbitrum
ZKs : StarkNet, zkSync, Aztec, polygon
DA: Celestia, EigenDA, Protodanksharding
Ethereum Trends
• Rollups are scaling: 7% of ETH fees paid by L2s
• Eth now consumes 0.001% of the energy YouTube consumes annually (Post merge)
• Ratio of total value secured ($417B) to value staked ($33B): 12.6x
ZKs
A cryptographic method for proving a statement is true without revealing any information about the statement.
Recent developments:
• Hardware costs ↓
• More educational materials
• Languages Noir & Leo maturing
• ZK-EVMs launching: ZK-EVM, Polygon zkEVM, Scroll
The ZK field heating up
• ZK related academic publications ↑
• Daily transactions verifying ZK proofs on Ethereum ↑
• GitHub stars for ZK repos ↑
• ZK tech improving at Moore's Law like pace
NFTs
• NFT creators made $1.9B in royalty revenues
• Big brands are entering Web3, starting w NFTs
Web3 Games
Huge opportunity to onboard new users to Web3
• $67.9B spent on in-game purchases in 2022
• 717 new web3 games in 2022
• Web3 games generate 23x more on-chain tx than Defi
If you want catch up on Web3 games, here's a thread I wrote: twitter.com/Cov_duk/status/1642777868706144258
Web3 Governance is experimenting
• Communities are driving public-goods funding for new projects
• Governance is moving beyond simple token voting
• DAOs are becoming formal legal entities
Participation in DAO governance is growing
The U.S is losing its lead in crypto
• Banning new technologies isn't American (drives jobs/growth elsewhere)
• Clear rules will protect consumers and help the web3 industry flourish.
• Businesses should be the focus of regulation, not the tech
a16zcrypto.com/content/article/web3-regulation-apps-not-protocols/
Regulation is being debated
• Proposed market legislation could provide clarity
• Courts are set to decide many impactful cases
• Government and industry are actively engaging
• Bipartisan momentum is building
To catch up with Crypto regulation:
twitter.com/Cov_duk/status/1639849730745466880
Innovation Metrics
• Bull market devs are sticking around (50k+ devs are actively interacting)
• etter tooling led to exponential growth contract deployers
• Verified smart contracts at ATH
• Crypto becoming a significant academic research area
• Increase in crypto jobs
Adoption Metrics
• Active addresses & web3 adoption increases ↑
• Transactions exploded with reduced fees
• # of mobile wallet users has declined
• DEXs are trading 100B+ mothly
• NFT buyers slowly rising
• Still high demand for stablecoins
What's Next?
• It's still early. Some of the most iconic products will be built in the bear
• On-chain games will become popular
• As blockspace becomes more available, other uses of tokens will increase
• Hiring, treasury management & sustainable funding will pop off
State of Crypto Index
A16z is also releasing a tool to track innovation & adoption metrics
Check it out here: a16zcrypto.com/stateofcrypto/
And that's it.
I hope this summary was helpful.
I highly recommend you check out the full report here:
a16zcrypto.com/content/article/state-of-crypto-report-2023/
If you found this useful,
• Give this a RT
• Follow me @Cov_duk for more!