Cosmos
An ecosystem that stands out in 2022. Everything about Cosmos just seems right so far - ethos, community, organic development activity and truly innovative technology. The main layer token ATOM lags behind the ecosystem growth, but proposals to revamp its tokenomics (referred as ATOM 2.0) are still playing out.
Evmos (EVM x Cosmos) aims to connect Cosmos with EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machines) compatible blockchains. IBC (inter-blockchain communication protocol) and many other fundamental products are maturing to connect the dots between the most adopted chains.
Cosmos is a huge ecosystem that deserves more content, but below are a few things you may try:
Check on airdrops from times to times. If you stake some ATOM and/or JUNO, there is a good chance you are eligible. If you don’t, get started asap is the word of order.
Find the name(s) that you identify with so that you can leverage it as a convenient identity within the Cosmos ecosystem, now or later.
Catch up with some of the latest projects through the recently streamed Stablecoin Summit.
Ethereum & Layers 2
Enough was said about the Ethereum merge pretty much everywhere in the crypto world and on my timeline too. Suffice it to say, it was the most sensational event of 20222 in my opinion. It was executed successfully and now we can just admire the “justified” deflationary shift (occurring with network usage only). Second order effects should come into play at proper time.
A lot of building and activity occurred on Ethereum layers 2 in 2022, notably Optimism, Arbitrum, Starknet, Zksync, ImmutableX, MedisDAO and Polygon.
Polygon revealed significant partnerships this year including Reddit, Instagram and Starbucks. Great overall coverage on Polygon by OurNetwork.
Arbitrum is at the top of the stats as well in part due to a potential airdrop. More here. And if you are more of an NFT addict, perhaps take look at its first NFT collection.
Crypto experiments 2022
Qubic - a personal (re)discovery of 2022 and bet on the future. You won’t read anywhere else about it but here on my timeline.
DIMO - a tracking app for cars providing incentives to share data. Easy to try on a Tesla and it provides convenient futures as well.
Soulbound tokens (SBTs) - well explained in Vitalik’s blog, I mentioned one of the possible challenge on my timeline. Regardless, this will likely grow quickly in the coming years. You can also find a more simplistic summary of what it is on Coindesk.
Crypto housekeeping 2022
“Other than Bitcoin and arguably Ethereum, you can not keep anything long term without doing some housekeeping from times to times. Many if not most of them are being upgraded and swapped over time, or worse. Some requires claims to be made prior to specific deadlines.”
I wrote a post on a few important protocol changes to keep track of (deadlines included), briefly mentioning Ren protocol, Secret network, Safe, Ramp, FiatDAO, Bond, Cheqd, Tornado Cash, Qredo, Aptos, Qubic, Zcash, and Chainlink.
Tooling (Edition 2022)
Delegate.cash extends functionality of the typical safe wallets (or vaults) such as ledger and multi-sig wallets by letting the more risky wallets such as hot wallets act on their behalf, essentially doing the dirty job (minting, voting or other random signatures). Read more on the concept here.
Check the $ETH burn and other supply stats live on ultrasound.money.
ENS has grown significantly in 2022 as more and more products realise its fundamental value as a first identity layer. ENS.Vision is a great tool to evaluate the ENS markets. Even virtual worlds are now being created based on your wallet activity and ENS domains.
You can now trade NFTs on Uniswap. Ann here. Other recommended places: Blur.io, Gem.xyz.
Current staking APR for ETH is about 4.7% on Lido and Stakewise.
Farcaster is a decentralized social network built on top of Ethereum. The Layer 1 blockchain manages user identities, while a Layer 2 network propagates updates between users. Find me there @msa.
I leave you with this excellent post from Coindesk about 23 blockchain predictions for 2023, and the only non-crypto tech I have been impressed with this year, ChatGPT (and 20 entertaining uses).