Crypto’s 69 most attention-grabbing charts from 2021

Metaverse and good contract property outperform

Value isn’t every thing, however the two high performing property in 2021 are indicative of broader developments all year long. 2021’s best performing assets have been:

• Metaverse gaming tokens
• Good contract platform tokens

The governance tokens of gaming worlds Axie Infinity (AXS) and The Sandbox (SAND) every posted 16,000 and 13,000 p.c good points respectively. In the meantime, platform tokens from Polygon, Terra, Solana, and Fantom, all posted 8,000% good points or extra.

On condition that play-to-earn gaming had a breakout yr, and layer 1s not named Ethereum noticed sturdy adoption, these developments needs to be of no shock. Now let’s dig a bit deeper.

The state of Layer 1s

Ethereum’s native token (ETH) did a modest 2X over the yr, whereas it was considerably of a tough yr for Ethereum DeFi blue chips, with the DeFiPulse index down 80% over the yr vs ETH.

The worth of DeFi property doesn’t inform your entire story, nevertheless. TVL of Ethereum DeFi functions showed tremendous growth over the yr, and the variety of distinctive Ethereum addresses interacting with DeFi protocols 4x’ed.

Regardless, ETH killers and sidechains gained the yr when measured by development of general market share.

The good migration & the EVM normal

In Might, there was $200M sitting in Ethereum bridges. That quantity climbed to $20B by the top of the yr, underscoring the nice migration of worth from Ethereum to different ecosystems.

The flipside, nevertheless, is that regardless of this migration away from Ethereum, most worth nonetheless sits in EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatible environments.

Keep in mind that the EVM is basically the mind of Ethereum that performs computations for the community. When different Layer 1s undertake the EVM, it makes deploying current functions on new networks simpler for builders, along with making it simpler for customers emigrate to those new chains.

The dominance of worth on EVM suitable chains (Avalanche, Polygon, and so forth) counsel that an ordinary is forming across the EVM. This could in the end preserve Ethereum because the gravitational middle of the good contracting world, as ETH functions and property might be natively interoperable with most different chains.

Rise of the app chains

Whereas EVM chains nonetheless dominate the panorama, the top of 2021 noticed an increase in worth on Tendermint chains. Recall that Tendermint is an ordinary popularized by Cosmos, that lets builders construct utility particular blockchains which might be able to interoperating with each other.

Constructing app-specific chains previously got here with vital alternative value, as a result of they have been lower off from most liquidity and customers. With the growth of Tendermint chains like Osmosis (AMM), Umee (lending), and Stargaze (NFTs), that’s changing into much less of a difficulty.

Now that these app particular chains have a widening array of use circumstances and liquidity that they will interoperate with, search for extra builders to make the most of customizability that these chains provide in 2022.

The ENS airdrop + DAOs

In 2021, ENS reminded everybody of Web3’s native consumer acquisition technique: the airdrop.

ENS (Ethereum Identify Service) addresses are finest considered e mail addresses that you would be able to ship cash to (e.g. Jimbo.eth). After 5 years in growth, the undertaking shifted to a DAO model, and airdropped ENS governance tokens to each consumer with an ENS tackle.

After the drop in November, consciousness of ENS and registration of .eth addresses skyrocketed.

For the reason that ENS DAO treasury collects income from new .eth registrations, income for the newly minted ENS DAO treasury ramped up considerably: one other testomony to how a lot a effectively orchestrated airdrop can transfer the needle.

Past ENS, DAOs had a robust yr, evident by the rising utilization in key items of DAO infrastructure. Gnosis Protected, which is the most well-liked multisig pockets DAOs use to handle their treasuries, noticed 3x growth in each the variety of Safes and transactions executed in 2021. Snapshot, a instrument that helps DAOs execute off-chain votes with on-chain verification, exhibited strong growth as effectively.

EN-EFF-TEES

Exercise on the dominant platform for NFTs tells you all it’s good to know concerning the breakout year NFTs loved.

OG NFT CryptoPunks saw 60x YoY growth, reaching a complete quantity of 650Ok ETH, or $1.7B at present costs. This determine nevertheless, features a flashloan powered $500M wash sale — a robust reminder of how a lot subjectivity there’s in on-chain information.

The second most notable NFT undertaking of the yr was Bored Ape Yacht Membership, which went from a distinct segment group to the celeb NFT of alternative, together with the likes of Steph Curry, Shaq, Justin Bieber, Jimmy Fallon, Paris Hilton, amongst others. At one level the BAYC ground (worth of the most cost effective NFT within the assortment) momentarily flipped the CryptoPunks ground.

Within the warmth of latest issuances flooding the market, and older NFT collections reaching billion greenback market caps, the common worth of NFTs altering palms did a 150x from 0.1 ETH to roughly 15 ETH by yr finish.

Some of the attention-grabbing NFT launches of the yr was Loot (coated here), which let anybody mint 1 of 8,000 NFTs that might type the idea of a Dungeons and Dragon type RPG sport. Preliminary pleasure was skyhigh, earlier than fizzling out as time went on.

Whereas Loot’s flame could have dimmed, it was nonetheless a landmark yr for NFT primarily based gaming, with the breakaway success of Axie Infinity bringing play-to-earn and GameFi narratives to the forefront. As the info reveals, Axie Infinity NFT quantity dwarfs that of any prior NFT primarily based sport.

Lastly, whereas Ethereum was the middle of the NFT present, marketplaces look like bobbing up throughout a number of chains. The information reveals that decrease charge environments are enabling various kinds of consumer exercise. Solana’s Magic Eden, for instance, has extra transactions than OpenSea since customers are unencumbered by exorbitant fuel charges.

Extra in Elias’s epic thread

Past being chock-full of illuminating information factors on the yr in crypto and Web3, the complete thread underscores the great thing about on-chain information and the elevated maturity of the trade. The power for one individual to place collectively a dataset this wealthy is a testomony to the entire nice information suppliers the trade now has at our disposal.

For those who haven’t already, try the full thread which covers Bitcoin, Ethereum, MEV, L2 adoption, ETH2, staking, Web3, memecoins, DEXes, stablecoins, and an entire lot extra.

~Written by Connor Dempsey & Justin Mart.