Future developments in crypto and blockchain technology

From: thepipeline_xyz

The future of crypto and blockchain technology is poised for significant expansion, driven by advancements in infrastructure, increased on-chain activity, and the emergence of new use cases. Discussions with Switchboard co-founders Chris and Mitch reveal insights into the evolving landscape, the importance of adaptable oracle solutions, and key trends that could shape the industry over the next several years.

Enabling New Use Cases with High-Performance Blockchains

A core belief driving current developments is the need for high-performance Layer 1 (L1) blockchains and cheaper chains to enable new applications previously unfeasible due to high transaction fees and slow processing speeds [02:54:00]. This vision suggests a future where “everything eventually will be tradeable on DEXs” [03:17:00], a perspective that was controversial even in 2018-2019 [03:22:00].

High-performance EVM ecosystems, like Monad, are seen as crucial for unlocking these new use cases because they address the economic barriers of high transaction fees [08:11:00]. The ability to handle transactions at scale with lower costs opens doors for applications that simply didn’t make sense on older, more expensive chains like Ethereum [08:21:00].

The Role of Oracles in Future Crypto Applications

Oracles are fundamental to expanding the utility of blockchain beyond traditional DeFi, enabling a more transparent and flexible data landscape [06:49:00].

Customizable and On-Demand Data

A key differentiator for future data needs is the shift towards on-demand data, where users can create data feeds with minimal setup [12:25:00]. This contrasts with static, less flexible data providers prevalent in the past [06:30:00]. The ability to pull, transform, and combine data streams on demand allows for the rapid listing of new assets and the creation of new markets [07:07:07].

Ephemeral Markets

This flexibility supports “ephemeral markets” – short-lived or highly specific markets that wouldn’t be economical for larger, more static data providers [13:41:00]. Examples include data feeds for games lasting only a few hours [13:45:00] or creating new indices for “meme coins of the day” instantly [14:23:00]. This capability could drive the next wave of DeFi derivatives and lending protocols [15:08:00].

Secure Randomness

Beyond price feeds, there has been unexpected growth in “game-fi” or “gam-fi” applications that require secure randomness, suggesting a future of crypto applications and use cases for non-financial dApps [16:54:00].

Emergent Verticals and High-Conviction Areas

Several verticals are expected to see significant growth and innovation in the coming years:

• Real-World Assets (RWAs): This narrative, though long-standing, is gaining significant traction, with examples like Ondo and Athena showing rapid growth and adoption [19:52:00]. The challenge lies in securely bringing off-chain collateral on-chain [21:18:00], potentially even including new forms of wrapped Bitcoin [21:30:00].
• Interest-Bearing Stablecoins: These are highlighted as having “proven product-market fit” and offering an “objectively better” experience for payments and end-users compared to Web2 rails [22:07:00]. The stablecoin market is over $100 billion and has significant room to grow as more payments move onto crypto rails [22:56:00]. Their success is strongly tied to performant, highly scalable blockchains [23:09:00].
• E-commerce and Non-DeFi Use Cases: To bring the “next billion people on-chain,” products that appeal to a broader audience beyond DeFi are essential [23:57:00]. Examples include seamless e-commerce, such as Shopify integrations with USDC and stablecoins, enabling commerce in jurisdictions with difficult payment rails [24:08:00].
• Decentralized Social Media: Platforms like Farcaster demonstrate the potential of decentralized social applications as a significant consumer-facing use case [32:37:00].

Broader Crypto and Blockchain Predictions

The future of the crypto industry is anticipated to experience massive growth:

• 100x On-Chain Activity: It’s predicted that on-chain activity will increase 100x over the next few years [24:51:00]. This explosion will drive massive demand for bringing real-world data on-chain [25:00:00].
• Scalable Oracle Solutions: To support this growth, a permissionless and customizable oracle offering is crucial, as a “BD team person every single time you want to create a data feed” is not a scalable model [25:10:00].
• Stablecoin Market Expansion: The growth of stablecoin TVL from $100billiontopotentially$500 billion would significantly impact the entire crypto ecosystem by increasing payment activity, volume, and collateral flow [38:45:00].
• Infinite Blockchain Throughput: A more theoretical future potential use cases for crypto and blockchain prediction involves a consensus model where nodes store history and consensus for individual dApps. Cross-program connections would build consensus for sub-maps of the network, potentially leading to infinite blockchain throughput [39:41:00].

Challenges in On-Chain Data Management

Managing real-world data on-chain presents unique challenges due to the transparent nature of blockchain:

• Data Freshness and Visibility: Awareness of data freshness and who can access it first is critical to prevent front-running [35:52:00].
• Security and Consensus: Achieving efficient and concise consensus for complex data, like tables of events, while maintaining trustless security [26:20:00]. Methods like ZK verification and hardware verification offer solutions, but balance gas efficiency and fidelity [26:44:00].
• Lock Contention in Parallel Blockchains: On high-speed, parallelized blockchains, managing “read-write locking” of storage blobs is essential to fully leverage the speed advantages [27:59:00]. Developers must consider lock contention and structure applications accordingly to maximize performance [28:12:00].

Optimizing for Performance

The development of applications on high-performance chains like Monad will see two types of builders:

1. Copy-Pasters: Those who fork existing applications, expecting significant performance gains (e.g., 100x) just by running them on a faster chain [29:26:00].
2. Deep Optimizers: Those who deeply understand the underlying innovations, such as asynchronous read/write to the custom state database. These builders can achieve “1000x” performance by optimizing at the state database level, providing a noticeable difference for users [29:42:00].

Conclusion

The crypto industry is in a period of rapid evolution, moving towards a future with vastly expanded on-chain activity, diverse applications, and more efficient infrastructure. The core thesis for participants is to “have conviction and holding through” [42:44:00], adapting to market changes while staying true to the fundamental beliefs that drive the space [42:59:00]. This continued building, even through challenging times, is seen as crucial for the industry’s success and expansion [42:48:00].