At the end of each year it is customary to give some predictions for the year to come, both in the crypto-world, as well as in other aspects of economy and life. In past years it was quite usual to see a focus on the bitcoin price. This year is no different, specially with btc reaching all time highs continuously.

I am not going to attempt such a guess. Nevertheless I feel that its quite possible to anticipate certain developments. Here are some educated guesses, feel free to correct if some of these prediction has already happened!

1.Blockchain gaming will grow even further. There is already a plethora of blockchain games, the majority of which run on the Ethereum network. Other networks host interesting games as well e.g Wax, Thundercore etc. Ethereum will get some competition as to being the proffered gaming network as other projects mature more and more.

2.Ethereum will get some serious competition

While right now Ethereum seems to be dominant in the Dapp development and projects that operate on the various Erc protocols, this is bound to change. High fees and network congestion is often a problem. The further development of projects that can handle traffic better and cheaper while offering more options will have a tremendous impact. Its hard to say if Ethereum will be dethroned in 2021, and in the end this is not necessary. The fast growing of blockchains interoperability will make exclusive use of Ethereum obsolete. We have already seen projects being able to run on multiple blockchains, and this is a trend that will continue in 2021.

3. Mainstream social media will reward users more.

So far no crypto social network has reached the capacity and audience of mainstream soscial media such as facebook, reddit, instagram etc. What we will probably see is mainstream companies borrowing concepts from the crypto world and embedding them into their platforms. This will probably happen in a simplified way. That being said:

4. Hybrid social networks will emerge.

There is a space between mainstream social media that everybody uses and crypto based social media like hive, publish0x etc that require at least some basic knowledge of cryptoccurency and blockchain. This space is a good ground for cultivating semi-blockchain social media. In other words social media that have a mainstream frontend with a blockchain backend, without the user having to know anything about crypto etc. Example of such projects today are still targeted towards the crypto crowd.

5. Mining may be embedded into everyday life and consumer products.

Although this will probably develop in later years, its not impossible to see some first steps in 2021.

Will Tesla utilize kinetic energy from braking in its cars to mine cryptocurrency? Will solar panel use excess energy to micro-mine? Some products exists today but they are targeted towards a very niche market.

6. Some countries may allow salaries to be paid in cryptocurrency and pass relevant regulations.

While individuals have made agreements to be paid partially or fully in bitcoin, there is no wide regulation and law that makes this a mainstream option. Will this become normal in 2021? Probably not in countries that follow a more traditional financial mindset, but countries like e.g Estonia may take the leap.

7. Non Fiat citizens will emerge.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain tools have been around for ten years. That means that it is now possible to have people in their late teens, early twenties that always lived (Exclusively or to an overwhelming degree) their economic life through cryptocurrency. Of course here we are talking about a small minority. Most of us still use Fiat to pay our bills. It is a promising start though.

2021 It is going to be a wild ride for crypto and blockcahin.

New terra nullius will be explored. More and more projects will begin to show fruitful results after years of intensive work. Black swans will emerge, and its impossible to know when and how!