Larry Cermak, VP of Research, The Block

On this episode of The Scoop, The Block's VP of Research Larry Cermak joined host Frank Chaparro for a discussion in which he broke down his predictions for the top crypto trends to come in 2022.

For the year ahead, Cermak expects that market appetite for established projects will continue, and that exchanges and data businesses in particular stand to benefit most.

“If there is already an established exchange or established data business and it just needs a little bit of cash to raise, they're never going to have issues," Cermak remarked.

Layer-2's in focus

Cermak also outlined why he believes layer-2 networks — protocols that enable faster and cheaper transactions on top of blockchains — will be a central theme of 2022, with a particular focus on zero-knowledge rollups.

“I do think that there's going to be a big development in layer-2's next year," said Cermak, adding:

“You have the first proper decentralized applications launching on these chains not just built for Ethereum, but built already for the layer-2’s. So I think that will be the main theme of next year when it comes to this perspective.” 

The next NFT wave?

Despite recent reductions in attention on NFTs as a whole, Cermak believes there's going to be a shift in demand for certain kinds of NFTs and gaming tokens.

Indeed, he expects the NFT market to continue to grow and become more sophisticated in its next wave. “I think, you know, maybe some of the profile NFTs are not going to be as hot next year," Cermak told Chaparro, "But I think some of the more creative ones and in-game assets of proper games… I think we’re going to see some of that next year.”

In addition to what Cermak is expecting for 2022, The Block's Research lead also walked listeners through how The Block’s research business has evolved and grown in 2021, noting that Tesla’s bitcoin purchase was a transformative catalyst.

“Everything changed after the Tesla announcement." Cermak said, "A lot of companies all of a sudden changed their mandates, and even though some of them maybe didn't end up investing a lot of them, all of a sudden they were like, well, we have to learn about what this is all about. We have to know what bitcoin is. We have to learn a little bit about how this ecosystem works. We have to know more about DeFi, more about L2's."

For an overview of The Block's 2022 Digital Asset Outlook, you can download the free, public report from The Block Research team here.