Decrypt Season 2022

Despite markets pacing down in recent months, NFTs couldn’t be more relevant as they start to penetrate a wide range of markets while offering more and more tangible utility. Various indicators signaling adoption beyond retail NFT trading and art and collectibles. Besides highlighting current NFT developments, we also shed some light on NFT fundamentals such as ownership and provenance in this week’s edition of Decrypt.

NFTs saw major momentum in 2021 alongside historically high trade volume and back to back record sales. As with any cycle top, NFT markets now face the tough conditions of a proper bear market with drying liquidity and participants looking to exit the market. But did this bubble pop once and for all or is there more? In this week’s edition of Decrypt, we dive into NFT markets, adoption and trends beyond art and collectibles.

As Ethereum successfully transitioned to Proof-of-Stake (PoS), all eyes are now on potentially centralizing forces within the upgraded network and the threat of censorship looming alongside. In this week’s Part II, we will shed light on the missing weak spots and finally, outline strategies to mitigate potential risks moving forward that rely on not only the protocol layer but also the social layer.

The Merge is days away, an event perceived as highly positive for the whole Ethereum ecosystem. Yet, discussions about centralization risks and censorship resistance pop up increasingly as the polarizing Tornado Cash sanctions fueled awareness. We will therefore highlight some of the most important points of centralization within this week’s Decrypt.

As the Merge inches closer with less than a month to go, Ethereum has captured a lot of attention from the crypto-wide ecosystem. In this week’s Decrypt, we therefore take the opportunity and highlight a multitude of metrics to get an idea about the so-called flippening, a term that is running hot as we count down towards the Merge.

Despite the contagious effects of Luna and Three Arrows Capital (3AC) impacting various CeFi platforms and the current macro conditions pressuring risk-on assets such as crypto, the activity on smart contract platforms and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocols remains healthy.

In Part II of our series on Bitcoin as collateral and reserve asset, we cover how Bitcoin’s unique features make it an attractive, neutral reserve asset. We, therefore, highlight the downsides of legacy reserve assets and the upsides of Bitcoin and its underlying cryptographic innovations that make it a viable alternative. As the overall market perception is shifting from a contrarian idea to a larger momentum, Bitcoin already resides in treasuries of various entities, despite not yet holding up to its properties as an inflation hedge.

With the recent macro and micro conditions pushing down crypto markets heavily, we will shed some light on the most significant events leading to contagious liquidation cascades and insolvencies across the ecosystem. We furthermore untangle how these events highlight DeFi’s value proposition and the importance of decentralized systems.

In a market characterized by high volatility, stablecoins offer crypto investors security and represent an escape from the volatility of crypto markets. What are they and why are exactly are they needed in the crypto and blockchain ecosystem?