Author: Pzai, Foresight News
Accompanying the maturity of Blockchain technology and the improvement of the regulatory environment, 2024 has become a critical turning point for the crypto field, both in terms of the market and application levels, marking the transition of this technology from early financial innovation to widespread commercial application.
Globally, the development of the crypto field has shown a trend of diversification and deepening, not only achieving important breakthroughs in the financial field, but also exhibiting huge potential in multiple application-level domains. This year, we have witnessed the innovation and evolution of Blockchain technology in areas such as asset and financial derivative trading, as well as the crypto field's entry into the realms of social, AI, and traditional internet.
With the inauguration of Trump and the influx of global capital, the Cryptocurrency field is pursuing its own dawn in different ways and embarking on a grander journey. This article provides a brief review of the progress of Mass Adoption in the crypto field in 2024.
Polymarket: The "Colosseum" of All Things
The tumultuous US election this year has brought a spring breeze to the crypto field, and has also truly brought the prediction market Polymarket to the center stage of the world. As a prediction market, the results of all things in the world are presented in real-time as probabilities of yes or no on Polymarket, with feedback from actual transactions reflecting the market's game.
In this election, it even played the role of a "prophet", with its feedback on the poll distribution being closer to the actual election results than traditional media polls. Its success is not only reflected in its accurate prediction of the election results, but more importantly, it has demonstrated how decentralized prediction markets can become an efficient information aggregation tool.
On this platform, users can bet on the outcomes of various events without permission, and these betting behaviors themselves reflect the collective expectations of participants on future events. As more people participate in such markets, the price mechanism can better reflect the likelihood of events occurring, thereby providing more comprehensive and timely data points than single sources. The platform's ease of use and flexibility have also quickly attracted a large number of new users, especially gaining widespread recognition among the younger generation and tech enthusiasts. According to reports, the platform once ranked second on the Apple free app chart, second only to another prediction market app Kalshi, showing an extremely high level of user engagement.
As a concept favored by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, prediction markets have grown from a niche experimental project of Blockchain technology geeks to an influential public decision-making reference tool. As more and more people begin to recognize the value of such platforms, Polymarket is expected to continue to expand its influence and explore more diversified application scenarios, such as financial derivatives and policy evaluation. In this "Colosseum", the debate of opinions brings a different perspective to the world.
Farcaster and Onchain Summer: Positive Attempts in SocialFi
The Base ecosystem, as the "evergreen tree" and main "engine" of the Ethereum system, has been widely followed since its inception. With the ecosystem support and user base of Coinbase, as well as the strong "Based" community atmosphere driven by people like Jesse Pollak, the foundation for the explosion of the Base ecosystem has been laid. It is precisely because of the thriving ecosystem atmosphere that the fertile soil for the mass adoption of Web3 has been created.
Last year, Friend.tech in the Base ecosystem once led the frenzy of SocialFi, with a large number of KOLs and users interacting within the protocol, and many users earning considerable profits. However, due to issues with its token economics and the slowdown in user growth, Friend.tech gradually lost the market's focus. In contrast, the decentralized social protocol Farcaster has successfully attracted a large number of users' attention and support by building a more open, inclusive and vibrant community ecosystem. Since opening registration in October last year, Farcaster has successfully become a social protocol with an average of 40,000 monthly active users and has already achieved a certain scale effect.
Compared to other applications, the uniqueness of Farcaster lies in the fact that it is not just a single social application, but more of a protocol-level role, allowing users to fully control their own data and social graphs, and freely migrate between different applications. Different developers can also create diverse front-end applications and services based on various APIs and frameworks. For example, Warpcast serves as a major client, providing a Twitter-like user experience.
Furthermore, frameworks like Farcaster Frames allow users to directly interact with on-chain applications and perform various operations such as gaming, NFT minting, and article subscription services within a single Cast frontend, creating more opportunities for users to participate in on-chain applications. Its unique community culture has also spawned community projects like DEGEN and HIGHER, gradually building community attention through token tipping mechanisms, while also enhancing the influence of the Base chain itself.
With the participation of more and more well-known figures (such as Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin), Farcaster has formed a vibrant and growing community environment. For users, the new on-chain social paradigm combines the ease of use of traditional social applications and the flexibility of on-chain economic systems, and with the development of applications like AI Agents, it provides users with more convenient interactions.
Meanwhile, the global online hackathon Onchain Summer held on the Base chain has also become a highlight of the first half of the year, aiming to attract developers, artists, brands and creators to participate in on-chain activities on Base through a series of incentive measures. This event not only attracted over 7,500 developers to submit more than 1,250 projects, but also demonstrated the broad application possibilities of Web3 technology in areas such as payments, business, and creator tools. An interesting fact is that you can now use USDC to buy coffee at 49 cafes around the world (you can even pay without gas fees on the Coinbase Wallet).
AI Agents: A New Paradigm in the Cyber World
AI Agents, as an important component of the human cyber future, are emerging as a new form of economic agent - this not only changes the face of technology, but also profoundly affects the way humans interact in the new system. As AI gradually integrates into everyday life in increasingly human-like cyber roles, Cryptocurrencies serve as the economic layer and protocol interaction layer for Agents.
Imagine a future where we can have a cyber symbiosis with AI, and the token economy becomes the key medium of interaction. For example, on the Base chain, AI Agents are seamlessly embedded into the ecosystem of decentralized applications (DApps), and reshape the crypto rules through activities on these platforms.
Virtual Protocol is a protocol built on the Base chain, aiming to build an ownership layer for AI Agents in the gaming and entertainment domain, and promote the development of agents through tokenization channels. The highlight of this protocol is that it is not just a simple token issuance platform, but an attempt to create a self-sustaining and constantly appreciating economic system.
Aethernet, the first AI Agent created by Martin, a member of the HIGHER community in Farcaster, has issued NFTs on Zora and received significant creator incentives. As a bridge between human creativity and digital possibilities, Aethernet not only actively participates in on-chain activities, but also promotes economic behavior in social relationships and brings valuable positive emotions.
As the AI Agent infrastructure is improved, and more and more developers begin to focus on the unique role AI can play in the crypto economic system, AI is expected to truly achieve synchronization with the real world, perceive real temperatures, and constantly iterate towards AGI. As a result, the strong feedback of the crypto world to the real world will soon arrive.
DeSci: Using Decentralization to Transform Scientific Research
In the field of scientific research, DeSci (Decentralized Science) is emerging as a new concept that is gaining increasing attention. It refers to the use of Web3 technologies and distributed ledgers to build a secure, persistent, and transparent system for scientific research records. In this way, scientists can better protect intellectual property, promote open collaboration, and ensure the authenticity and traceability of research results. According to forecasts from the crypto institution Spartan, DeSci will receive more attention in 2024 and become a powerful use case for Blockchain. This is because DeSci not only solves the problem of data silos in the traditional research process, but also provides new possibilities for global knowledge sharing.
A representative example is the Molecule DAO, which has provided practical support for dozens of biomedical projects, most of which have reached the stage of patent monetization or Series A financing under this concept. Derivative platforms such as BIO Protocol, VitaDAO (focused on funding longevity-related biological researchers), and PsyDAO (psychedelic drug research, etc.) have also emerged in specific sub-fields.
Specifically, DeSci uses the autonomous nature of DAOs to track the progress of each research project, including experimental design, data analysis, and final publication. This not only helps to improve the transparency of the entire research process, but also effectively prevents academic misconduct.
At the same time, through the mechanism of smart contracts, researchers can issue fundraising and collaboration workflows without permission, thereby simplifying the collaboration process across institutions. More importantly, DeSci platforms often adopt a token economic model to incentivize participants to contribute high-quality content and services, thereby forming a self-sustaining and growing ecosystem. This also proves that DeSci itself is a manifestation of the sustainability of the crypto field, providing sufficient soil for the progress of science.
TON Mini Apps: A New Attempt to Lower the Entry Barrier
If we can find the biggest intersection between the crypto field and the traditional field, Telegram (TON) is most likely to become that intersection. Imagine that you can access on-chain and off-chain services through a diverse and convenient front-end and Bot operations in one application. As of the end of May 2024, the monthly active users (MAU) of Telegram Mini Apps have reached 400 million, and increased to 500 million in July, with more than half of Telegram users actively involved in the crypto field.
The explosion of countless Mini Apps this year has brought hope for many to reach countless users through social platforms. In terms of user usage, some applications are also making inroads from different ecological positions. TADA in Singapore is a typical example, showing how to use the existing communication platform functions to achieve seamless integration between online communication and offline services.
As a ride-hailing service platform, TADA not only provides competitive price advantages, but more importantly, it has successfully simplified the payment process and allowed users to complete transactions directly in Telegram using various Cryptocurrencies. This innovation not only revolutionized the traditional travel model, but also provided a successful example for the practical application of Web3 scenarios. For the industry, TADA's case shows that when the right technology and business model are combined, it can effectively promote more people to accept and use DeFi services.
Notcoin is a simple airdrop Mini App based on Telegram, which has quickly accumulated a large number of fans since its launch in early 2024. The game attracts millions of players through a simple mechanism, and also introduces a token economic model to encourage users to participate and obtain rewards through airdrops. Over time, some users begin to explore deeper functions in TON, such as investing in DeFi products or participating in other forms of on-chain activities. The success of Notcoin proves that through fun and instant feedback mechanisms, it is possible to effectively guide new users into the complex crypto world. In terms of user acquisition strategy, TON has also successfully achieved the closed loop of "click-to-earn traffic - token airdrop - user conversion to DeFi applications" through its "Mini Apps".
RWA: "Integration" of On-Chain and Off-Chain
The interconnection of on-chain and off-chain assets has been one of the "pain points" that many projects have been exploring for multiple cycles, and with the relaxation of the compliance environment, the future of RWA (Real-World Assets) is unfolding before us. According to Bitwise's statistics, the total RWA assets in the global market have exceeded $12.5 billion, including a large portion of private credit and government bond-related derivatives.
For on-chain users, the accessibility of off-chain asset returns is gradually becoming an important part of the entire economic system. When Sky shifted from DAI to USDS, it was already well-prepared in the RWA field (Spark's introduction of RWA provided some experience for Sky), providing crypto users with considerable off-chain yield opportunities.
Stable coins such as Usual and Anzen, which focus on RWA-based yields, have also recently launched their TGEs, reflecting the market's strong enthusiasm for RWA yield opportunities. Usual integrates the liquidity of platforms like Hashnote with general stable coin liquidity, providing flexible yields for holders through the USD0 and Bond models, while Anzen Finance provides diversified yield sources by using a portfolio of private credit assets as collateral.
Recently, the EU's adoption of the Crypto MiCA regulation has accelerated the progress of regional stable coins and crypto custody compliance, and Trump's return to power has also provided imagination space for the future of off-chain asset issuance on-chain. With the accelerated crypto compliance in various regions and the gradual entry of major capital like BlackRock and Citigroup into the RWA track, the RWA track is expected to provide crypto users with more diverse choices in the near future.
Conclusion
In 2024, the Crypto field is experiencing a flourishing scene, which is not only a critical moment for technological progress, but also an important turning point for countless Crypto projects to move from concepts to reality. With the increasing maturity of Blockchain technology and the gradual improvement of the compliance environment, we have witnessed the widespread acceptance and deep development of Cryptocurrencies and their related applications globally.
When the flowers are in full bloom, we need to set sail. Hopefully in the near future, we will see many people having Crypto wallets and participating in various economic activities on-chain, and even coexisting peacefully with AI in the Cyber society, building harmonious interpersonal relationships.
