Ethereum is the second cryptocurrency platform by market capitalization, and it’s poised to become an even bigger part of the cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem in the future. For anyone that’s building a decentralized application or launching a token, Ethereum is the first blockchain to consider – Ethereum already has a thriving ecosystem, the largest development community in crypto, and an unmatched set of tools and resources that savvy developers and entrepreneurs can leverage to their advantage.
The future is looking bright for Ethereum – here are the 5 most important Ethereum trends to follow in 2021.
Ethereum 2.0 will start rolling out
The Ethereum project is transitioning towards a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, which will make Ethereum much faster and cheaper to use, and make the platform more environmentally friendly. Ethereum 2.0 will not just be about proof-of-stake, but it will also introduce sharding, which will have a tremendously positive impact on Ethereum’s scalability.
In 2021, the transition will likely already be in effect on a technical level, and ETH holders will be able to actually start staking their tokens to earn a passive income on their holdings. Even though the minimum requirement for full validators is 32 ETH, even users who hold smaller amounts of ETH will be able to participate by joining staking pools.
The full deployment of Ethereum 2.0 will take several years to complete, but Ethereum 2.0 will likely be one of the most important cryptocurrency and blockchain trends of 2021.
The DeFi ecosystem will keep evolving
Decentralized finance or DeFi is currently on the minds of all cryptocurrency investors, and for good reason – DeFi application provide an unprecedented level of access to financial services such as lending and trading to everyone, regardless of their financial status or country of residence.
Users are flocking to DeFi protocols as they attempt to find promising new projects, and take advantage of yield-bearing opportunities by strategically lending and borrowing crypto assets. This trend is known as “yield farming”, and could see continued growth in 2021 and beyond.
Decentralized finance projects like Maker, Uniswap, Yearn Finance, Aave and Compound will likely continue to be major players in the cryptocurrency space, and become even more useful as developers upgrade their functionality and community members craft the best governance proposals to take these platforms to the next level.
NFTs and digital art
The unique properties of blockchain technology enable the creation of digital assets that are provably scarce – unlike computer files, where two copies of a file are indistinguishable from each other, the authenticity of non-fungible tokens or NFTs can be easily verified on the blockchain.
Ethereum is currently dominating the NFT sector, and this is unlikely to change moving forward. NFTs can be used to create scarce digital art pieces, digital collectibles, video game items, and much more.
While there’s already a flourishing movement of digital artists that’s emerging around NFT technology, major corporations are also taking notice. The NBA has approved an NFT-based game called NBA Top Shot, while the MLB is officially licensing MLB Champions, a game where players can collect their favorite pro baseball players represented as NFT tokens.
Ethereum will remain the dominant platform for tokens and stablecoins
The majority of developers and entrepreneurs who want to create their own custom blockchain-based tokens will most likely continue to use Ethereum as their primary option. Tokens launched on Ethereum can be transferred using popular cryptocurrency wallets, seamlessly traded on decentralized exchanges and integrated into decentralized finance protocols.
While we’re on the subject of Ethereum-based tokens, we shouldn’t ignore stablecoins. Stablecoins are crypto tokens that are designed to track the value of real-world assets such as fiat currencies. Ethereum is the primary choice for the most widely adopted stablecoins such as Tether, USD Coin and Paxos Standard Token.
Blockchain-powered gaming
Ethereum is being leveraged by major blockchain gaming projects such as Enjin and Gods Unchained. The Ethereum blockchain opens up unique avenues for games, for example giving gamers the ability to transfer items between different games.
Ethereum is also gaining more and more adoption on online betting platforms and crypto casinos. Casinos that accept Ethereum in 2021 will undoubtedly benefit from the increased adoption and utility of ETH. For users who are looking for an online casino that accepts ETH in 2021, newcasinoonline.com is one of the best ways to get started.
