Disclaimer
This is probably 100% wrong.

Predictions

Access to applications

To a newcomer accessing applications build on any blockchain is an overwhelming experience. These are the usual steps required accessing any application and using it.

1. Buy coins on an exchange (usually requires KYC)
2. Creating a wallet (e.g. Meta Mask)
3. Sending the coins from the exchange to the wallet
4. Connect the wallet to the web3 application

This is not easy, and as newcomer literally impossible to do!

On top of that, at any stage they are most likely confronted with ridiculous gas fees. Keeping the ones who want in from entering and the ones already in from exiting.

This will change in 2022!

The barriers to entry the cryptoverse will lower significantly to a level where it feels like engaging with traditional normal applications. This will be enabled by solutions streamlining the onboarding process build by players in the crypto world but also the traditional finance world.

Additionally gas fees will not be an issue anymore as on those networks where congestion is a problem, onboarding on a Layer 2 will be the norm, and most people won't even know and won't care that they operate on an application layer rather than the network layer itself (similar to the internet).

NFTs looking for their purpose

NFTs had a wild run this past year fueled by speculation and increasing recognition by the public.

This is just the beginning!

But same as any other emerging innovation, we will probably see a consolidation for the foreseeable future where NFTs will look for their true purpose/killer application (who knows what this will be). For as long as this is going on we will have a few projects popping up and doing pretty well but before NFTs really find their use case within society a lot of trial and error has yet to happen.

But is it not great that we now have "hype cycles" within our own "hype cycle", where else did this happen except the internet?

Regulations catch up

There is not much else to say here, except that the legislations have been lagging behind since the inception of the technology. Law makes have since tried to apply existing rules on a new technology, which rearely works. Next year we will start seeing regulations that have been specifically made to regulate the crypto space. This obviously varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction but we will see new laws in a lot of countries (could even be banning it completely, unfortunately).

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Now its your turn!
What are your predictions for next year and what are you looking forward to the most?