What will happen in the crypto industry after 2020

Cryptocurrency is called the money of the future, and there are certain reasons for that. In 2020, despite the situation with the pandemic and the stock market decline, the value of digital currencies is actively increasing (for example, Bitcoin has almost doubled in value in two weeks). Currently, we observe that in Russia, Ukraine, and several other countries on all continents, the legalization of cryptocurrencies is underway at the state level. Based on the analysis of what is happening, we will try to predict the future of this industry. What awaits us?

Scalability

In the 2020s, we will see blockchain moving to a new level. Transaction throughput should increase by several orders of magnitude. And as soon as the global market sees the speed of scalability and the prospects of blockchain, the number of startups that will base their technology on this technology will increase proportionally.

A situation similar to this already occurred after modems at 56 kbit/s were replaced by broadband (high-speed) network access. It was then that companies like YouTube, Uber, etc., made themselves known.

Improving Privacy

In most cases, there is no point in broadcasting every payment you make to a transparent ledger. In addition to scalability, we will see an improvement in transaction privacy.

This is what happened with data transmission protocols. HTTP was upgraded to HTTPS and set as default on many sites instead of outdated TLS and SSL cryptographic protocols.

Strengthening

High-class teams such as Dfinity, Cosmos, Polkadot, Ethereum 2, Algorand, etc., are working on improving decentralization. Each year, we will witness increasing progress in scalability, simplifying blockchain development, chain consolidation; and cryptocurrencies will become a significant part of the economy of individual countries.

It can be assumed that there will be approximately as many tokens as there will be companies / investment and charitable funds / payment systems, and only a few chains will provide the basic infrastructure for them. Eventually, almost every financial institution will have some form of cryptocurrency operations, and most funds will hold part of their assets in this form.

Transition from Trading to Practicality

Many companies that call themselves cryptocurrency exchanges are actually brokerage firms. In the 2010s, cryptocurrency investments and currency trading defined much of the market activity. In the 2020s, the market structure should increasingly resemble the traditional financial world.

At the same time, we believe that new companies created in the crypto space will be more focused on the benefits and practicality of digital currencies. More and more people are using crypto in everyday life (applying for crypto debit cards, buying and earning money by selling goods, taking out loans, and paying for purchases with cryptocurrency).

In 2019, GiveCrypto.org made payments in cryptocurrency to 5000 people in Venezuela. Over 90% of them were able to make at least one transaction with a local store that accepts cryptocurrency or with a local money withdrawal partner. This indicates that tools have begun to overcome the convenience threshold in emerging markets.

Changing the Business and Startup Industry

In this decade, we should see how cryptocurrency startups operate. Just as offline companies have actively digitized and moved all processes online, businesses must transform and create a global concept of the crypto economy. Crypto startups will define three things:

- business platforms will be deployed on the blockchain;