9 Predictions for Future of Crypto & Blockchain in 2023

what can the crypto enthusiasts look forward to in 2023? Will there be any regulations imposed on crypto? What is next in line for Ethereum? Read to know the various blockchain predictions of 2023!

23 Jan 2023 | 10 min read

Table of Contents

Introduction

No sooner than the introduction to crypto was made with Bitcoin than the mass adoption of the new asset began. The massive changes or evolution that have taken place within the crypto ecosystem in the past decade, has brought in some of the most influential projects that has made the path to Web3 possible. As the year 2022 ended with the FTX fiasco, the Terra LUNA crash that somewhat made the crypto investors nervous had also caused the realisation of the crypto space being as big as more than 20k crypto assets; according to Forbes. Some of the coins are taking the lead on that while BTC and ETH have been seeing a surge in their prices in January. Taking a closer look at the various crypto price predictions would tell one that the market is taking a breather from the dominant sentiments of 2022. However, the following big question is, what can the crypto enthusiasts look forward to in 2023? Will there be any regulations imposed on crypto? What is next in line for Ethereum? Following are the various blockchain predictions of 2023!

Top 8 Predictions For The Future of Crypto

The Crypto Regulations: During the union budget 2022, our Hon’ble Finance Minister Mrs. Nirmala Sitharaman had announced revolutionary changes to the virtual asset class. For the first time, the government officially termed digital assets including crypto assets under the term “Virtual Digital Assets”. These comprise all the cryptos such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc, and other digital assets such as Non-fungible token (NFTs). Now that we are looking forward to this years Union Budget, set to take place on February 1, 2023, the crypto community of India are waiting for this year to be the year where the clashes over regulation finally reach their climax.
Larger Adoption Of Bitcoin: Many seasoned investors are of the opinion that there will be even larger adoption of Bitcoin as we move ahead. According to a post, the founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals, Ric Edelman have predicted that almost or more than 500 million people around the globe will own Bitcoin by the end of 2023. With BTC price surge, keep an eye out for Crypto News to keep up!
The NFT Surge: With 2023 seeing some major partnerships between sports and NFTs, 2023 is yet to see the next step to what we saw last year.
Possible Market Changes: Entering the new year has been a better compared to the majority of how 2022 went, given the crypto incidences. With real reasons for some of the occurrences being out, the investors are getting comfortable with the market. The older crypto winter incidences get, the change in trend lines that the crypto assets are slowly showing can end up in a more positive outlook into the market, as claimed by experts.
Mass Adoption to Continue: Looking back at the market journey from November 2022, the market sentiment has seen a shift. With the surge in value for some of the top crypto assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, the adoption is likely to grow. The ETH wallets have reached the non zero balance of a new high record of 92.5 million on Monday; January 16, 2023. Seeing the behaviour, many experts believe that the mass adoption of the crypto asset will be continuing in 2023.
Ether To Surpass Bitcoin Again: Given the surge in NFT sale volumes, which mostly run on Ethereum, experts think that similar to how Ether outperformed Bitcoin two years back, in 2021, by gaining 418 % compared to 66 % for Bitcoin.
Meme Coins May Disappear? Since last year the well known meme coins like Shiba INU or Dogecoin have been making developments to newer ventures. Along with that the Squid coin fiasco from last year also did not help in strong-arming the usefulness of meme coins. Thus, investors thing that this may lead to the full transition of the meme coins from the crypto space.
Web3 Is The Next Big Thing: In most predictions the to-be incidences rely on how the previous performance of the market was. The year 2022 had been very heavily invested in innovative things like Web3 and decentralization of the crypto market. The highest valued crypto exchange, CoinDCX also hosted the biggest Web3 event of the year, UNFOLD, for various Web3 masterminds to come together and create a space where people learn and discuss all things Web3. The activities around Web3, according to experts, might even work towards projecting a bigger bull run than many experts predicted. The possibilities will allow users to trade faster and without any third party involvement like banks or governments, which can greatly affect the crypto market. Web3 might just be the next big thing, if not already.

Taking a look at the possible crypto scenarios in this year, as stated by various crypto experts, let us now take a look at some of the blockchain development activities that the crypto community is looking forward to in 2023.

9 Blockchain Predictions of 2023

The Ethereum Network’s Transition

Few years down the line, when the crypto community will look back at the journey of crypto, the most important moment of 2022 will be the transition of the biggest alt coin by market cap, Ethereum’s transition to energy efficient Proof of Stake from its previously Proof of Work consensus mechanism. Along with that, ETH will also be remembered for continuing to be the most influential layer 1; which was being used by various projects everywhere. Right now, ever since its transition in 2022, Ethereum has been witnessing the evolution of the layers that have been existing within humanity’s social, economic and political operating system. The crypto experts are saying that in 2023, the Ethereum network will continue to be the most widely adopted, widely developed and capital-heavy layer 1 blockchain. Since the introduction of Bitcoin in 2009, the Ethereum Merge has undoubtedly been the greatest event in the crypto industry. With the continuing works on equally important developments on the Ethereum Network in 2023, it can most easily be the driver of greater adoption and capital in a ripple effect that has the ability to situate Ethereum as the leader in the next bull run.

Following the merge upgrade, the Ethereum network is ready for the next upgrade that had been planned after the Merge; the Shanghai upgrade. It has been planned to be executed in the second quarter of 2023. Once the Shanghai upgrade is set in place, the EIP-4844 is another Ethereum innovation that will further set Ethereum as the most ubiquitous layer 1. EIP-4844 is going to enable proto-danksharding; which will help in layer 2s scaling. EIP-4844 has been a proposal to start implementing elements of danksharding as the full danksharding design is still in the developmental stage.

Ethereum Staking is also one of the results that the crypto community is looking forward to, as after the merge took place in September, ETH is now the largest staked capital base of any blockchain, with more than $20 billion staked!

Crypto Regulations in The USA

The increasing rate at which the US has been looking at proceedings to look into crypto for further improvising the usage of crypto assets in daily life, it will not be surprising if Washington, D.C. becomes a crypto hotspot in 2023 if the regulatory innovation proceeds at this unprecedented rates. Seeing the incidents of 2022, the policy makers are likely to take extra care of ‘customer protection’. According to Andrew Keys of DARMA Capital, majority of emerging policy will be around centralized exchanges and stablecoins. It is being said that majority of emerging policy may be around centralized exchanges and stablecoins. Some crypto exchanges like Coinbase may be forced to be a G-SIFI-regulated institution, which in turn will be increasing their regulatory compliance costs. If the predictions take place as the experts are saying, then the crypto community should look out for Washington, D.C.! It has the potential to become the hotbed of some of the most controversial and important conversations that is about to take place about crypto in 2023.

Read more: Top Stablecoins List

Growth of NFT Utility

As we move deeper into the world of Web3, use cases of NFTs will find itself in more sectors than digital art. As we move past the era of jpeg, the blue chip “jpeg” NFTs is walking towards itself to be a multi-billion-dollar asset class. With big brands like Starbucks exploring alternative use cases of NFTs; if the project sees mass appreciation, many other commercial leaders will be joining the exploration and the crypto community will see a big bang of major brands working towards releasing NFT rewards points.

Investment DAOs

As we are welcoming the world where decentralised nature of work is the best result, for a decentralized, secure and transparent alternatives to investing through GP/LP venture structures, investment DAOs has the potential to grow in prominence.

Filecoin Upgrades

According to crypto experts, Filecoin is in the process of releasing smart contracts in the Q1 of 2023 through the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM). It is a critical on-chain upgrade which will help in allowing the network to come into its own as a fully fledged layer 1 protocol. After successful execution of the project, Filecoin will be paving the way for the world’s largest decentralized data economy.

Zero-Knowledge To Prominence

zK proofs rose to prominence last year with one use case, ZK-Rollups which helped them in gaining visibility as the dominant tool for Ethereum scaling. Now with the knowledge of Zero-Knowledge, many projects are already underway which has a much broader set of use cases that has a possibility of getting unlocked by the adoption of software development kits, or commonly referred to as SDK. These SDK will allow ZK smart contracts to be programmed into applications “ZKApps” that is being worked upon to be executed off-chain, with verification and settlement back on-chain.

Gaming in Web3

The world of gaming got a shocker with what Web3 was bringing onto the table for the gamers! However, the flaws of Web3 gaming that was pointed out in the early projects can finally begin to work them and meet the gamers where they are. As the gaming community have stated, Web3 gaming in 2023 can look forward to shaking off the habits of the earliest projects and start with the projects that will bring together the utility that Web3 offers along with the aesthetics of traditional gaming!

Read more on: Top Web3 Tokens

The Rise of DeSci

The utilities of what DeFi brings with it, has been explored by various sectors. Similar to how blockchain in being used by various sectors like healthcare and education, DeFi space will be used in the science sector; DeSci. Decentralized science will be taking the center stage as another major use case of Web3 with open-source collaboration and decentralized fundraising. As decisions are a major factor in science, DAOs will be at the forefront of the movement.

Understanding DeFi

So far, DeFi has been understood using CeFi as a reference go which it has been compared. As we move deeper into the next steps in Web3, the world will understand the difference between CeFi and DeFi a little better.

Conclusion

With so many predictions of what the world is to witness in the DeFi space, the best way to keep tabs on it is to understand the basics first. Keep an eye out for crypto explanations on CoinDCX Blog.

Read more:

Blockchain in Healthcare Industry

How Blockchain is used in Education