“A bird that fears turbulence will never know how high it can fly.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo

Introduction

This article is my submission to the contest MyCryptoOutlook2022 BitYard Contest and Giveaway - $1,200 in ETH Prizes! 

If you have not participated you can find the original post here.

The start of 2022 has provided turbulent waters for the crypto ships to navigate through to calmer waters. As the quote from Matshona Dhilwayo says if we fear turbulence then we shall not know how high we can fly. Likewise if we fear turbulence in crypto then we shall not know how high crypto can soar.

We are in a rocky period I am sure you all agree, and some investors have jumped ship, but why, there are so many projects that will soar this year, and it is our job to find those and back them, and then reap the rewards.

1. Among the coins already listed on BitYard (including spot, lite futures, or futures trading pairs), share at least one that you think will be trendy in 2022.

Two of my favourite coins that are listed on BitYard are BCH and ATOM. To be honest, coins and tokens from the smartBCH and Cosmos networks make up the majority of my portfolio, and I firmly believe that both coins will be trendy in 2022 due to several associated projects that have recently been or are due to be launched.

smartBCH exploded onto the scene in the second half of 2021 with several awesome DeFis (examples being mistswap, tangoswap, tropical and benswap which was the first to launch), and projects being launched. A couple examples include NFT projects such as the LAW punks from blockng.cash and potentially the Pandas gamefi project from pandaland.cash.

I do love NFT projects that give you the ability to earn passively such as the LAW punks where you can earn the LAW token. With the Pandas gamefi you can earn playing their game or by breeding to get more NFTs. NFT creators are savvy on BCH and generally use Oasis and WAX, generally avoiding ClosedSea I mean OpenSea.

This article though will focus more on ATOM and the Cosmos network, but before I switch to ATOM, I just need to mention an awesome initiative that has just been launched by the Defi mistswap and that is a bridge to convert from Eth amongst others to smartBCH. This really is fantastic and will make many more users flock to smartBCH.

The trading volume of BCH is insane, the snapshot from coinmarketcap below shows it is the fourth ranking coin in 24hour volume!

In my humble opinion the outlook for 2022 is bright and I believe smartBCH and ATOM will perform equally well.

We were asked to select at least one coin which will be trendy in 2022, and I am going to give the nod to ATOM the be the trendiest and one big reason is for the sexyness of the ecosystem.

Whilst BCH has the current lead in NFTs and projects on smartBCH, ATOM is catching up fast and I shall explain why.

What is the COSMOS network and what is ATOM and how are they interconnected?

ATOMs are the native token of the Cosmos Network.

The Internet of Blockchains - is how Cosmos describes itself.

The Cosmos network is a decentralized network of independent yet interoperable blockchains that are able to exchange information and tokens between each other permissionlessly.

Cosmos aims to address the scalability, usability and governance issues faced by other blockchains. They propose to do this by providing the tools to help developers quickly build independent blockchains, and these blockchains in the network can easily communicate with each other.   In Cosmos, these independent blockchains are called “zones”, and are powered by the Tendermint proof-of-stake byzantine fault tolerant (BFT) consensus algorithm.   The first blockchain on the Cosmos network is the Cosmos Hub, there is a thriving social community on twitter and telegram and fans of ATOM and cosmos call themselves Cosmonauts for obvious reasons. Some more examples of zones on Cosmos are Osmosis, Secret Network, Crypto.org chain, Juno Network, Comdex, Akash, Starname, Persistence, Desmos Network and Terra.  

The potential of Cosmos is only just beginning and as a result the growth of ATOM is only just starting.

Cosmos plans for 2022

• Interchain Accounts will be landing on the Cosmos Hub with the completion of the Theta upgrade expected in Q1 2022. Interchain Accounts have several major implications for the Cosmos ecosystem, one of which is the power to elevate Cosmos DeFi to the next level.
• Liquid Staking is coming in February 2022 and is directly integrated into the Cosmos SDK. Version one of Liquid Staking will allow ATOM holders to send transactions that immediately convert their bonded ATOM into transferrable representations that can be used in liquidity pools and other activities. Osmosis will also be releasing its version of Liquid Staking, called Superfluid Staking
• The public launch of Emeris in Spring 2022 will bring many features including advanced capabilities for portfolio visualization, digital asset management, and service discovery. There will also be staking with auto-compounding of rewards to maximize rewards generation, cross-chain DEX aggregation, an airdrop tracker, and a browser extension that works seamlessly with the Emeris web dashboard.
• Stargaze, a public protocol for NFTs, Pylons, an interoperable system for brands and creators to build products with NFTs, BitSong, the first music NFT marketplace, Omniflix, a decentralized media and network layer powered by NFTs, and Secret Network’s Stashh, a full-stack platform and marketplace supporting Secret NFTs will be releasing more updates. Evmos will also soon support NFT deployment and host marketplaces for people to easily trade and deploy NFTs.
• Strangeclan will be adding to its first virtual town of its adventure game with quests, social activities, competitive battles, and the ability to mint NFT characters, goods, and tokens. 

There are already many nodes that can be used by connecting your keplr wallet and/or browser extensions. The UI is awesome and the main reason that I said Cosmos is sexy. I love the blue and it is easy to use.

One huge bright advantage of Cosmos is the airdrops. These are not just for the whales, many of them are fairdrops, so as long as you hold the mimumum requirements then you will eligible for the full rewards. The next one is for Juno so get delegated if you have not done so already, as the snapshop will be taken sometime early in February.

Some other confirmed airdrops will be from Evmos, Umee, Gravity Bridge, LikeCoin, Game, Stargaze, BitSong, and Cyber

2. Share your predictions and opinions on the crypto market in 2022 - from vanilla tokens like BTC and ETH, to meme coins like DOGE and SHIB, to DEFI/NFT/GAMEFI, or the Metaverse - anything goes, you name it!

• BTC - Bitcoin will end 2022 still as the market leader, and all other coins and alts will trend generally in a similar fashion. I expect more big companies to gobble up some bitcoin and potentially another El Salvador. I would hope for an ATH of $100,000 to appear towards the end of the year.
• ETH - will still be the second coin in the crypto world, and they might lessen the gap on Bitcoin a little bit. However gas fees and the ridiculous price of them will start to hurt Eth. More and more NFTs and Gamefi will start to drift away to other hosting platforms just as they have been doing in 2021.
• meme coins - these are always going to be around, and is still a great opportunity to make some killings even in this bloody market that we are in.
• DeFi - is just going to go from strength to strength. The masses are loving it and want more, so more will be provided offering much better features.
• NFTs - 2022 is the Year of the Tiger but I believe 2022 will be the Year of the NFT. More and more people outside of the crypto world are starting to take notice of NFTs and so this will only help fuel the fire. However, I do see Eth take a hammering with their NFTs. OpenSea will always lose creators as it is has be come to cumbersome and expensive. Personally speaking I have a hard time now connecting my metamask wallet to it.
• GameFi - is going to explode. So many people spend hundreds of dollars without batting an eyelid. Once they grasp the idea that spending that kind of money on GameFi will return an income then more people outside of crypto will get involved. 
• Metaverse - Don;t talk to me about Facebook, I binned that years ago but hey have made a buzzword for the masses though.

3. BitYard

A big thank you to BitYard for supporting this contest and ultimately donating some SHIB to The Giving Block.

I have previously written about BitYard and you can read a couple of my articles  Innovations with BitYard and Crypto charities  and How to Deposit in Bityard  or if you would like some further information about BitYard then you can check out their site here. 

BitYard is the world’s leading cryptocurrency derivative exchange and is a one-stop trading platform for all levels of global investors, whether a newbie or a seasoned crypto-pro.

It was founded in late 2019 and has headquarters in Singapore.

Bityard has just had a greatly improved user interface. With this new UI and also a new slogan "Grow your future in the Yard" Bityard has taken cryptocurrency trading to a whole new level, providing users with a better trading experience.

BitYard gives the user comprehensive contract and spot trading services and has developed many convenient trading tools.

Some of these services include:

• Contract Trading BitYard offers contract trading services including CFDs and perpetual contracts, which includes many asset types such as cryptocurrencies, forex currencies, indices, and commodities.

•  Spot Trading With over 100 crypto spot trading pairs available on the platform, including mainstream coins such as BTC/USDT and ETH/USDT, as well as other popular altcoins, BitYard provides digital currency enthusiasts with a full range of options.

• Trading Tools BitYard has developed copy trading and grid trading tools, aiming to make trading easier for its users. Through these tools, even beginners like me can quickly get to grips with crypto trading.

• Copy Trading Copy Trading allows users to copy trading strategies from experts. It helps you earn better profits and learn from experienced traders.

• Daily Mining Users can participate in daily mining to receive a random amount of crypto assets as rewards. The crypto assets will include BYD (Bityard Token) or USDT. The gift money can be used as trading fees. 

4. The Giving Block

A big thanks to BitYard as they will donate 50,000 SHIB through The Giving Block to charity because I have made this article with the hashtag TheGivingBlock in my contest entry, and add a small bit about The Giving Block at the end of your post. BitYard will also donate 50,000 SHIB for every article in this competition that does the same!

The Giving Block is the #1 crypto donation solution, which provides an ecosystem for nonprofits and charities to fundraise Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, be found by crypto donors, receive funds instantly, and become part of a network of crypto media partners to support their missions.

The Giving Block was founded in 2018, when co-founders Alex Wilson and Pat Duffy saw that nonprofits and cryptocurrency donors needed something that didn’t exist. And that was a way for them to find each other easily so they could change the world together.

Conclusion

The start of 2022 has been rough on the crypto world and I believe this will remain the same during the first quarter. The markets will carry on being a crab market, with little ups and down but in reality moving sideways.

However, Q2 will see the fears diminish from Russia and their potential Ukraine invasion, also they will relax on their so called crypto clamp down. We will see more of the Covid endemic as the world learns to live and deal with coronavirus. The Americans will get their confidence back and crypto will rise.

For my two coins I would not be surprised to see BCH hit $500 and ATOM hit $90 come the summer and potentially end the year at BCH of $740 and ATOM of $140.

Bitcoin will still lead the way and Eth will catch up a little, however the whole gas fees fiasco will also prove the undoing of Eth as more and more projects move away from Eth, and I can see other coins bridging the gap on Eth!

PS. Don't forget ... Grow Your Future In The Yard with Bityard! (if you haven't signed up to BitYard feel free to do it here )