Even with an exciting year full of crypto collapses and price reductions, Steven Goulden, a senior research analyst at crypto trading platform Cumberland, has pointed to many “green shoots” that might breach the surface in crypto in 2023.
Goulden predicted four “developing themes” in 2023 that would result in “substantial success” for cryptocurrencies over the following six to 24 months in a 14-page “Year in Review” study published on December 24.
These include Web3 apps and games being “genuinely popular,” nonfungible tokens (NFTs) becoming the “go-to solution” for tokenising a brand’s intellectual property (IP), and Bitcoin BTC and ETH potentially becoming more popular as a country’s reserve currency.
While Goulden conceded that NFTs had thus far “mostly been restricted to the art sector,” he said that combining NFTs with a brand’s intellectual property will be the next step for NFTs.
The analyst pointed out that some non-Web3 businesses are already making “substantial progress” in using NFTs to monetise IP and boost user engagement. Among these are Nike’s debut of Swoosh, which lets users make unique shoe NFTs, and Starbucks’ cooperation with Polygon to produce NFTs for Starbucks customers.
According to Goulden, “it’s evident from listening to these firms discuss Web3 projects that they view digital connection with customers and fans as a new component of the retail experience.
The author also mentioned the possibility of creating significant, high-margin revenue from selling NFTs to retail consumers.
Nike is a prime example of it, having made $200 million from just selling digital footwear. The expert predicts that 0xmon (XMON) and Polygon MATIC LooksRare (LOOK) will take the lead on this front.
Real-world Utility Applications Will Take Off
Goulden also predicts that in 2023, “real world utility”-providing Web3 platforms will begin to gain ground, despite the fact that doing so has so far proven to be “very difficult”:
As a result, “we expect meaningful traction is probably 12+ months off, with serious user acceptance being roughly 2-5 years out” since it takes time to establish and bootstrap companies like this.
Goulden listed a few platforms that were “really valuable in the real world,” including the ride-sharing app Teleport, the IT recruiting platform Braintrust, the Internet of Things protocol Helium, the GPU rendering service Render, the global mapping project Hivemapper, and the GPU rendering service Render.
Web3 Games To Draw “Serious” Players
The analyst expressed optimism about the Web3 gaming business, saying that there are around three billion gamers worldwide, 200 million of whom are “serious,” implying a total addressable market of $200–300 billion.
As Reserve Assets, BTC And ETH
The research analyst concluded by urging special attention to be paid to BTC and ETH’s potential use as reserve assets, particularly for countries with an export-oriented economy.
To weaken their own currencies relative to the U.S. dollar, several high-exporting countries may decide to store up their reserves with alternative assets such as cryptocurrencies rather than Treasury notes, according to Goulden:
A minor central bank allocation to Bitcoin or Ethereum would be significant and encourage other exporting nations to do the same.