Cryptocurrencies had a dream run in 2021. From being treated as a fringe topic to becoming a potential disruptor of the traditional financial ecosystem, 2021 stood witness to the meteoric growth in the value of cryptocurrencies, as well as a significant change of momentum in terms of mainstream adoption and technological adoption. Between NFTs, metaverse, multichain projects, layer-2 scaling solutions, blockchain 3.0, web 3.0, play-to-earn games – there’s a lot that has happened in 2021. Even though it is too early to predict how the cryptoverse will evolve in 2022, several projects have already raised the bar by introducing solutions that harness the potential of the underlying blockchain technology to meet a diverse range of real-world use cases. Here are five intriguing projects across the DeFi, trading, NFT, DAO, and security sectors poised to play key roles in the crypto ecosystem’s accelerating maturation. Bridging Real-World Assets With DeFi By design, TradFi (traditional finance) and DeFi (decentralized finance) are two different worlds. There isn’t much overlap between ecosystems, except the respective challenges each faces. For instance, the DeFi market is highly fragmented, leading to liquidity problems. On the other hand, the centralized nature of TradFi makes it extremely complicated for small and medium businesses to access funding opportunities as and when needed. As the next logical step in the evolution ...