Conference Presentation, Keynote
Decentralized Applications: What's Now, What's Next
- Decentralized applications are expected to eventually integrate across all industries, driven by a continued innovation cycle among technologists and builders.
- The credit and lending market is anticipated to move toward equilibrium between lenders and borrowers over the next few months as the ecosystem matures and more participants enter the space.
- Centralized storage intermediaries like AWS are predicted to be replaced by decentralized networks where users utilize one another's resources, aiming to eliminate single points of failure and create a more robust internet.
- A $200 billion physical collectibles market is currently transitioning into the digital realm, with digital assets expected to become unique, scarce, and provably scarce while ownership is verified via blockchain.
- Projects are expected to increasingly prioritize compliance, including KYC and AML checks, and shift focus to designing for specific target demographics rather than solely on technological application.
- Blockchain technology is viewed as the next major wave following social, mobile, and cloud, with Layer One and Layer Two solutions designed to enable existing platforms to scale to higher transaction volumes.
- Infrastructure providers and projects such as 0x are expected to facilitate a global liquidity pool, allowing participants to plug into shared networks rather than reinventing building blocks or relying on individual efforts.
- Blockchain-based games are predicted to align incentives between participants and shift value toward creators and players by eliminating middlemen, a trend potentially catalyzed by platforms like Rally that enable trading in open marketplaces.
- Addressing speed, scalability, and interoperability remains critical, with the industry expecting massive scale in gaming and infrastructure development to resolve current transaction overloads.
- Current blockchain payment systems face limitations regarding speed, cost, and volatility, creating a market that is not yet fully balanced or entirely rosy despite the promise of utility being realized now.
- Users are expected to demand the ability to move digital items across various chains, a need highlighted by past incidents like CryptoKitties which sparked necessary conversations on scaling and interoperability.
- While the specific future promise is described as anyone's guess, the speaker anticipates real examples of utility in crypto are being experienced now rather than in a distant future.