The crypto asset market is one of the most volatile and fast-moving markets in the world, making it very difficult to make accurate predictions about the future. However, in this blog post we will attempt the impossible by making some general predictions about the crypto market over the next 12 months. 

Modular Blockchains
Scaling blockchain transaction performance is necessary in order to onboard many more people to crypto rails. As transaction fees on Ethereum continue to be high, we will see Modular Blockchains play a central role in scaling this technology and reducing fees.

Networks like EigenLayer and Celestia will play an important role in lowering the transaction fees for users. Apollo Crypto is an early investor in EigenLayer, and we expect the project to go live with their EigenDA product later this year, which will be an important building block in enabling this transition.

 

Bitcoin New All Time High
In December, we published Apollo Crypto’s ETF Scenario for the Coming Cycle, arguing we could see US$65 billion of inflows to Bitcoin ETFs, which could drive the price to $200,000. We believe this will play out over the coming years.

The Bitcoin ETF approvals came in early January, and this year we have the Bitcoin ‘Halving’ in April when the new BTC supply inflation will be cut in half. Together with the expectation that central banks are pivoting to cutting interest rates, Bitcoin should do well. The Bitcoin all-time-high (ATH) in November 2021 was $65,000. We predict we will see a new ATH sometime during 2024.

 

The Battle Over An Ethereum (ETH) ETF Will Heat Up
Now that Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) has officially been approved by the SEC, the attention will now turn to the possibility of an ETH ETF. Speculation around the approval of a Bitcoin ETF really picked up once the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, first filed their ETF application with the SEC. BlackRock is again set to be front of mind when it comes to the ETH ETF after their recent filing in November 2023.

Much like they did with the Bitcoin ETF, the SEC is likely to fight against an ETH ETF approval. However, we are confident that we will see the crypto industry continue to push back against the SEC, who have been found to be unfairly treating crypto businesses in court in recent times.

 

Merchant Adoption of Crypto Payments
If we are correct that crypto is about to enter a new phase with more interest and adoption, the personal wealth in crypto will increase significantly as the number of people holding crypto and prices increase at the same time. Merchants will want to take advantage of this, and start selling goods and services for crypto.

Early movers in this space include Bitrefill (gift cards), Travala (travel) and Shuffle (online casino). In 2024, we might see a wave of merchants starting to accept crypto payments in order to cater to this new class of crypto-wealthy people. Companies enabling this include Coinbase Commerce and PayPal, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see the likes of Square and X make moves in this area.

 

‘Intents’ & Intent Centric Systems
Over the next 12 months, we predict that the narrative around what is known as ‘Intents’ will proliferate. Not only will this be a narrative, but an innovative solution that will drive efficiencies and cost savings for users and protocols alike.

What are ‘Intents’?: An intent is a specific goal a blockchain user wants to accomplish. This could be swapping 1 ETH for 2,500 USDC, or it could be transferring 1,000 USDT from Arbitrum layer 2 to the Avalanche blockchain.

In an intent-centric system, a user will submit their intent to a blockchain protocol, this protocol will then oursource the fulfillment of that intent to a “solver”, who completes the action and takes a fee for providing this service.

In the best case scenario, intent-centric systems will provide better user experiences for retail participants in a capital efficient and low cost manner. In the worst case scenario, the fulfillment of the majority of user intents will be controlled by a small number of sophisticated players, leading to centralisation and trustlessness issues in the long run.

 

Key Management Systems & Account Abstraction
A wave of retail usage of on-chain applications will be driven by improvements in the infrastructure around private key management. Instead of browser wallets like Metamask being the easiest and safest way for users to access on-chain applications such as Decentralised Finance (DeFi), wallets that look and feel more like a traditional Web2 ‘Username & Password’ log-in will be favored.

In this space we are with particular interest watching what Infinex will bring to the market.