For slightly more than a decade, the world has been witnessing blockchain technology evolve and expand in all fields of our life. Now, we are at the start of the Web3 era. So, there is nothing surprising that in 2022, the most successful projects were connected with the underlying infrastructure, so they got the most fraction in 2022.
Ethereum
Amidst the crypto winter, Ethereum managed to complete the shift to the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. Even during the hardest times, this coin was afloat, and its value, even though plunging, was still more stable than the value of the majority of coins.
When it was launched in 2015, Ethereum disrupted the world of crypto and blockchain. It was the first project that demonstrated that blockchain technology is not limited to coins merely but can be applied anywhere, literally.
The next disruption happened in September 2022 when the entire ecosystem shifted to the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. It was the first event of such a kind in the history of blockchain. The shift to the PoS demonstrated the ambitions and potential of the Ethereum team and the power of the project.
Binance Coin
After the infamous collapse of FTX, Binance became the most powerful centralized cryptocurrency exchange. Even though the preceding year was full of complications caused by the recurrent scrutiny with regulators, the exchange managed to keep all its employees and hire more, while others were firing.
Binance Coin, the native token of the Binance ecosystem, was following the development in the crypto market with drastic falls and increases in its price. It still hasn’t recovered completely from the crypto winter but as long as Binance handles all the challenges successfully, BNB is going to stay among the leaders in the market.
BNB is among the top 5 crypto assets held in portfolios because of the coin’s vast application. It supports DeFi and NFTs, and because of the network's high scalability and low gas fees, it competes effectively with Ethereum.
Polygon
Polygon is an Ethereum-based scaling platform. For almost the entire past year, Polygon was at the top, which is quite an achievement. Many businesses started building new projects, especially those connected to Web3, based on the Polygon network which added to its popularity.
Polygon has partnerships with such brands as Adidas, Adobe, Flipkart, Disney, NFL, Reddit, Stripe, Instagram, among others. This adds to the project’s weight.
Ripple
Ripple was the first crypto project aimed not at replacing fiat but at improving the existing banking system by offering a fast and cheap transfer solution. Among the Ripple adopters, we can see such names as Santander, MoneyGram International, American Express, SBI Holdings, and Deloitte, among others. With the growth of blockchain acceptance among financial institutions, the importance of the project is increasing, too.
Ripple is energy-efficient and carbon-free which is important in the current environmental conditions.
Along with payment transfers, the Ripple ecosystem can be used to create solutions and solve inefficiencies including tokenization and token remittance.
Tether
USDT from Tether is the most popular stablecoin, and probably the only one that hasn’t given up to market hits.
USDT is 1:1 pegged to USD. The peg is achieved by holding commercial papers, cash, fiduciary deposits, reserve repo notes, and treasury bills which value equals the value of the issued USDT tokens.
The project was launched in 2014 as Realcoin and was renamed later to USTether. Even though Tether had to face accusations of being not transparent and even fraudulent, it is the major player in the cryptocurrency market.
Bottom Line
As we can see, all projects are connected with innovation, solve some real-world problems, and offer unique solutions that can improve the way we live. That’s why despite all challenges, they are going to stay afloat.