What are the 12 predictions Outlier Ventures made at the beginning of the year?

Only by understanding the past can we better predict the future.

In December 2019, the encryption investment agency Outlier Ventures made 12 predictions on the encryption industry, covering blockchain games, Telegram, China's DCEP, European blockchain trends, and innovative public chain projects and Bitcoin and other topics.

Towards the end of the year, we will look back at these predictions and find that some of them have become reality, and some have undergone tremendous changes under the influence of the turbulent internal and external environment. Looking back at the changes throughout the year, what enlightenment do these predictions have for us to predict the future?

Prophecy 1: District The tide of blockchain + games is coming

In 2020, blockchain game infrastructure such as high-performance platforms, convenient digital asset deposit and withdrawal channels, easy-to-use digital asset storage and transfer wallets will be gradually built. The next thing to do is channel distribution and reach users. Players can rent out their GPU and CPU hardware to perform computing and rendering tasks, thereby earning "points" that can be used in-game or across games.

Prediction: Valve (V agency) or Epic game platform will launch blockchain-based game services.

Comments: In 2020, blockchain games did not usher in explosive growth as expected. Instead, NFTs in more subdivided fields became popular twice in the early and late stages of the DeFi boom this year. Interestingly, even now, NFT still maintains a lasting popularity, especially well-known athletes and artists have entered NFT one after another, and quickly became fans. And after the accumulation of encrypted art in the second half of the year, it is worth looking forward to whether there will be more platform-based and broader blockchain games in the new year.

Prophecy 2: In Use Telegram at home

Telegram has about 200 million monthly users, and they have chosen a messaging service provider with special features in terms of privacy and security, and many users are early adopters of cryptocurrency projects. Prediction: By the end of 2020, Telegram will be the most active blockchain network.

Prediction results: By the end of 2020, Telegram will be the blockchain network with the most monthly activities.

Comment: Encryption this year One of the biggest regulatory events in the industry was the suspension of the TON project led by Telegram. However, even so, Telegram is still the most common social tool for crypto investors to observe the industry, obtain information and communicate.

This November, Privacy-protecting browser Brave Browser announced that its monthly active users increased to 20 million from 8.7 million in the same period last year. The number of daily active users has also grown at the same rate, from 3 million to 7 million. According to etherscan data, there are only about 1,400 users (households) who actually play BAT token every day, while at the beginning of the year this number was about 800, an increase of 75%.

Prediction 3: Use Corda at work

Corda is a distributed ledger platform launched by R3 CEV. It borrows some features of the blockchain, such as the UTXO model and smart contracts, but it is different from the blockchain in essence, and not everyone can use it. A platform aimed at interoperability scenarios between banks or between a bank and its business users.

Prediction result: Corda will surpass the market share of Hyperledger, Ethereum and Quorum to become the market leader in enterprise-level blockchain networks.

Comments: Hyperledger, Quorum, and Corda are first-class alliance chain platforms. In October, IBM announced a new partnership with enterprise blockchain consortium R3. As part of the partnership, R3 announced a new open beta program to bring R3's enterprise blockchain platform, Corda Enterprise, to IBM's LinuxONE. The R3 beta of LinuxONE is scheduled to open on November 2.

Prophecy 4: China Will vigorously develop digital currency

A survey of 63 central banks conducted by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in 2018 showed that the vast majority of central banks are working on proof-of-concept work on digital currencies, but most central banks have yet to make a real start. get ready. The CBDC will be a wholesale CBDC, not a retail CBDC. The central bank will likely focus on the wholesale market, leaving the retail market to regulated institutions.

In 2020, China may officially launch Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP), and its license will be granted to mainstream platforms chosen by hundreds of millions of users such as Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent as distribution channels.

Forecast result: By the end of 2020, more than 500 million Chinese will use services connected to the DCEP network.

Comments: Judging from the results, Outlier Ventures is too optimistic. As of now, China's DCEP has not yet been launched. But it is worth noting that China is still far ahead in promoting the central bank's digital currency. According to reports, since the beginning of this year, DCEP has been tested in Shenzhen, Suzhou and other places, and it is worth looking forward to whether it will be widely implemented next year.

Prophecy 5: Europe The tide broke out

In 2020, Europe will begin to preempt the United States as the center of blockchain projects in the West, both in terms of financing and infrastructure development.

Forecast results: In 2019, European venture capital investment in blockchain companies was 700 million US dollars, and by 2020 this figure will exceed 2018's 850 million US dollars, reaching 900 million US dollars, making history highest level.

Comments: Judging from the financing situation of encryption institutions this year, European blockchain companies are not very prominent. On the contrary, in terms of supervision, Europe has increased supervision and control. In addition to being vigilant against Libra stablecoins, KYC, AML and other measures of encrypted trading platforms have not relaxed.

We enter "Blockchain" in Google Trends, and sort by the search popularity displayed by region, we will find that the global blockchain discussion is concentrated in Africa and Asia.

Prediction 6: There will be a war between East and West in the blockchain field

Outlier Ventures this year in Asia especially China has spent a lot of time and energy, and they believe that there will be more differences between the East and the West in the field of blockchain, especially digital assets. Of course, this is nothing new. In fact, there have always been two versions of the Internet, but driven by China's development, the speed of Internet popularization is beyond imagination.

  ·  Although China has officially embarked on an authorized blockchain road that does not involve tokenization, several (types) of PoS networks such as Bitcoin mining and EOS have already Monopolized by several major companies or groups, some people believe that these chains are controlled by Chinese companies.

  ·  Most cryptocurrency trading volume still comes from China. It is understood that by the second quarter of 2020, only a few leading trading platforms will be able to obtain formal licenses, and initially May operate in a very limited manner.

  ·  Perhaps we will see a longer Web2.5 era in Asia, or a completely different form of Web3.0, but the result will lead to a It is technical, and it is a struggle for financial dominance.

Prediction result: 3 cryptocurrency trading platforms are officially licensed in China and operate under restricted conditions.

Comments: The actual situation is not so optimistic. All cryptocurrency trading platforms and illegal financing projects have been cleared in China. This year, some trading platforms can only choose to expand the market in a low-key manner due to various problems.

Prophecy 7: token The market will be cleaned

The big event throughout 2020 will be "The Reckoning".

Cryptocurrency trading platforms will develop in a professional direction as the situation forces, and "zombie tokens" will be delisted, and investors will gradually abandon them. 2020 will be all about market drivers and adoption of projects, not just press releases partnerships, beta launches and funding rounds. What we hope to see is a market driver like the Brave browser with tens of millions of monthly active users. This is what the encryption industry is proud of.

Forecast result: In 2020, there will be 5 new projects with a market value exceeding US$5 billion.

Comments: Judging from the data, there have not been so many projects of this size this year. As of December 23, projects with a scale of 5 billion US dollars can rank among the top 8 in the total global encryption market value. In 2020 , the only project that has risen to the top of this ranking is ChainLink, and the others are all established projects. With the emergence of new DeFi projects, many old projects have been forgotten.

Prediction 8: Bit

We believe that in 2020, the development of Bitcoin will shift from a simple "store of value" to an open financial "platform", with the safest and most credible settlement in the market layer.

The halving of Bitcoin production will attract most of the attention of the industry and the media, and price behavior will dominate investors' thinking. But the growth of LApps (Lightning Network Applications) and broader data support will be a stronger signal for the development of the Bitcoin network fee market and the long-term viability of Bitcoin.

Forecast result: By the end of 2020, the dominance of Bitcoin market value in the cryptocurrency market will increase from 66% to at least 75%.

Comments: As of now, the market value of Bitcoin accounts for around 66% of the total market value of the cryptocurrency market. Interestingly, the invasion of DeFi by Bitcoin assets on Ethereum this year, such as wBTC, zBTC, imBTC, etc., still maintains a strong momentum.

Prophecy 9: Ether There won’t be more applications in Fangfang, but DeFi will continue to be hot

We want to see layer 2 applications, applications other than crowdfunding and DeFi; hope to see games currently using EOS and Tron Ability to migrate to Ethereum and use DeFi module components. With the development of MAST/Taproot on the Bitcoin network, and the launch of new smart contract platforms on the mainnet in 2020, we may see more and more platforms with stable development teams. This will result in fewer new dapps being developed on Ethereum, but retaining the best out there like MakerDAO and Compound, able to drive monthly active users, and an increase in the value locked in smart contracts. But what is hard to predict is whether a blockbuster app developed using DeFi modules will use Ethereum as the base layer, or whether interoperability projects such as the GEO protocol will reduce the importance of the base layer over time and value.

Forecast result: In 2020, the total value locked in Ethereum will exceed 1 billion US dollars.

Comments: Sure enough, Ethereum has ushered in explosive growth this year. The following data can prove it:

Prediction 10: If you only focus on the old giants, you will miss the new blockchain network< /h3>

 

The "oversupply" of new smart contract platforms will emerge in 2020, and start to focus on the acquisition of developers and customers. Over time, most developers will become more familiar with blockchain platforms. Currently, less than 1% of developers worldwide are familiar with blockchain platform development.

 

Most developers hope to use stable, safe, fast and easy-to-use software. Polkadot, Fetch.ai, Dfinity, Hashgraph, Near Protocol, Spacemesh, Solana, Telegram Open Network, Thunder Token, nCent and all blockchain platforms that already exist in the market, such as Cardano, Tezos, Holochain, Algorand, Blockstack, etc., Both are different to some extent, but the biggest question is: how do they differentiate themselves from developers who need to create "killer" apps? And how to attract consumers?

 

Predicted results: By the end of the year, no new smart contract platform has more than 400 applications.

 

Comments: As mentioned at the beginning of the year, the market is full of new but useless public chains, which cannot attract real users. Such public chain projects are destined to be eliminated by the market, and the project party may gradually disappear and stop updating. May be handed back to the community to do nothing.

 

At the end of 2020, Ethereum is still the most popular underlying infrastructure for developers; followed by Polkadot and Tezos, and Filecoin ranks fourth. In terms of blockchain developers with 30 or fewer developers in the ecosystem, the top five growth momentum are: Avalanche Protocol, Balancer, Uniswap, Yearn.finance, and Arweave.

 

Prediction 11: 2020 is a baptism

coming soon There will be very few new tokens, and the development will be more mature. By the end of 2020, public offerings and listings will no longer be seed companies. Although they will not be as mature as traditional IPO companies, at least one product will adapt to the market.

Prediction result: more than 50% of the listed tokens will be delisted.

Comment: As mentioned above, many "useless" public chains will be eliminated in 2020.

Prediction 12: Investment Customers don't want to be customers, they want revenue

Since the ICO market crash and IEO yields have weakened, projects have been exploring alternative token distribution strategies to align fundraising and network participant interests.

Ideal token distribution that addresses speculation, regulation, network asymmetry, market irrationality, and stakeholder alignment. Strategies from different teams have been proposed or tested, such as lock-drop, warlock, liquid airdrops, etc. A clear trend in 2020 is that the market size of investors among active network participants is smaller, making it impossible to raise enough capital to build a global network. We'll go back to the way startups sell equity to investors to raise capital, and how tokens are used to reward users.

Prediction result: Before the mainnet goes online, 90% of western cryptocurrency projects use equity as the main financing tool.

Comments: Since the beginning of this year, equity financing has become a financing tool for many projects and companies. With DeFi, there is also a new financing method called IUO. Due to the rise of Uniswap, more and more Projects began to choose this platform as the way of token distribution, and this brought about a change in the profit model of the centralized trading platform - the fee for listing coins decreased, and the income of the platform returned more and more to normal transaction fees.

In 2021, we look forward to new changes in the cryptocurrency industry and more applications that really come into life.

Outlier Ventures Original Link

Block Beats 0x60 original translation

Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community:

Telegram Subscription Group: https://t.me/theblockbeats

Telegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App

Official Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia