’Everything is getting tokenised,’ say Balancer, prePO, YGG, ParallelFi, and others

<p>Stockhead continues our cryptocurrency prediction series, with developers, thought leaders, founders, and creatives weighing in.</p> <p>After lagging in 2021, DeFi tokens are expected to gain ground</p> <p>"I think it's been interesting to see this year that leading assets in DeFi—the sector of crypto with the most solid user traction, product-market fit, and revenues—have significantly underperformed more speculative sectors like the metaverse, NFTs, and nascent L1 projects," says Jeremy Musighi, head of growth at Balancer, an automated portfolio manager and trading platform.</p> <p>"Some experts, such as [Three Arrows Capital CEO] Su Zhu, have proposed that this reflects market scepticism about the long-term growth of the Ethereum ecosystem, in favour of DeFi ecosystems on other chains." However, I would like to highlight two points that I believe contradict this notion:</p> <p>"1) DeFi protocols that have most aggressively expanded cross-chain (e.g., Aave, Sushi, Chainlink) have performed just as poorly in markets as those that have not.</p> <p>"2) Managing native DeFi projects on Solana and Avalanche has also taken a beating" (That is Raydium, Trader Joe, Pangolin).</p> <p>"The cryptocurrency market is both narrative-driven and cyclical." Momentum is constantly shifting from one sector to another, as whales cycle profits and narratives shift on a dime.</p> <p>"Market narratives will continue to shift in 2022, and it's difficult to see them continuing to discount DeFi as they did in 2021."</p> <p>DAOs, NFTs, and play-to-earn trends will continue to evolve</p> <p>"I believe that many of the crypto trends that emerged in 2021 will evolve in 2022," says Xavier Ekkel, the Australian founder of prePO, a Singapore-based crypto platform that aims to disrupt pre-public investing by allowing retail investors to invest in projects as early as pre-IPO.</p> <p>"DAOs will evolve from niche crypto collectives into a legitimate structure for forming a community around a common goal."</p> <p>"NFTs will progress