What lies ahead for crypto and blockchain in 2021? Experts answer

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It would be fair to admit that after 2020 and all it has put us through, making any predictions for the upcoming year is most likely to be a game of blindfold. Meanwhile, I am certain that humanity has much to learn from its past transgressions, and will move forward by correcting our mistakes and weaknesses. That’s what we always do. Undoubtedly, the major driver of our development this year was the COVID-19 outbreak. The effects of the ongoing global pandemic on every aspect of our lives will form our future, and there are some tendencies we started last year that will most likely continue in 2021.

COVID-19 has revealed the dire need for solutions in economic efficiency and transparency, and most urgently within the healthcare sector. Further deployments of blockchain solutions will strengthen healthcare systems, if not revolutionize them, by helping both medical practitioners and patients globally. Despite promises to preserve citizens’ private data during the global pandemic in the name of public health, the blockchain-based solutions storing COVID-19 data have raised serious concerns, as they don’t seem to be private at all. While the potential of such emerging technologies is promising, to balance privacy with the appropriate solutions should be a priority for those engaged in this industry.

Related: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the crypto space? Experts answer

By driving our technological development into the future, the pandemic has also had a significant and ambitious impact on the financial sector. On one hand, governments all over the world have made great strides in the development of central bank digital currencies this year. With CBDC implementations coming closer, serious privacy concerns have been rightfully raised within the crypto community, as the technology represents another step toward a more centralized financial system.

Related: Did CBDCs affect the crypto space in 2020, and what’s next in 2021? Experts answer

On the other hand, people have been seeking alternative — and decentralized — solutions, which led to the unprecedented rise of the decentralized finance sector witnessed this year. Both trends will certainly remain central to the upcoming year.

Related: Was 2020 a ‘DeFi year,’ and what is expected from the sector in 2021? Experts answer

Amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, global governments began printing money, generating new concerns about the health of the financial sector and turning people toward alternative assets — cryptocurrencies. As a result, Bitcoin (BTC) proved itself as a hedge against inflation while its position as a store of value was strengthened, unlike in 2017.

Related: Did Bitcoin prove itself to be a reliable store of value in 2020? Experts answer

Serious institutional investors, hedge funds and other sophisticated financial players — such as Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, MicroStrategy, Square and PayPal, among others — entered the crypto space, and this tendency will most likely remain in the upcoming year. With more mainstream investors and service providers joining the industry, the real utility of digital assets will further drive cryptocurrency’s mass adoption worldwide, which in turn will drive crypto charity and philanthropy.

Related: Will PayPal’s crypto integration bring crypto to the masses? Experts answer

With cheap and scalable, trustless systems, blockchain tech is improving supply chain efficiencies across many industries from blood donations to food enterprises, and there will most certainly be more DLT-backed use cases implemented across the globe. Some even argue that enterprise blockchain is the next step in economic architecture evolution, and that not taking this step alongside everyone else will be a grave mistake for large companies in 2021.

Related: Unforgettable: How blockchain will fundamentally change the human experience

Last but not least is blockchain’s potential in our efforts to combat climate change and global warming. Blockchain technology stewarding the environment will be crucial for the future, from sustainable digital finance and carbon emissions to eco-friendly crypto mining and transparent fuel use. As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals without blockchain seems an impossible undertaking.

Blockchain and crypto are not a panacea and won’t solve all our problems, but their potential to improve the world would be unwise to ignore. Cointelegraph reached out to industry leaders and asked for their personal expectations for 2021 to gain some insight on the upcoming year in crypto and blockchain.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/what-lies-ahead-for-crypto-and-blockchain-in-2021-experts-answer