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Yes, I scanned through part of Messari's impressive report that amounted to 165 pages so that you don't have to do the same. But it's a fascinating read. Head over to https://messari.io/crypto-theses-for-2022 and input your name and email if your curiosity is nonetheless piqued by my less-than-adequate TL;DR summary! Although I did try to beef this up with my knowledge.
1) Core NFT infrastructure will be a promising engine of growth in 2022 (pg 10)
Messari expresses reservations about whether the market for individual NFTs will continue to heat up but states resolutely that "reliable and ubiquitous NFT tooling is still largely missing". He points out that marketplaces, creator tools and decentralised identity management systems are still in their infancy.
What I Know And Think: It seems that every self-respecting crypto exchange will incorporate a NFT marketplace into their operations these days. FTX recently launched FTX NFTs (also known as "the Marketplace") in September 2021. Not only can its Marketplace support NFTs on the Solana blockchainalso on the Ethereum network. It does seem that FTX is a little bit behind the game as Gemini acquired Nifty Gateway to facilitate NFT transactions way back in 2019. I think it goes to show how much computational thinking will be prized in the future and how we need to equip our young with coding and creativity skills so that they can fend for themselves and forge their future. Hopefully, one of our bright sparks will surpass the achievements of Benyamin Ahemd, a 12-year-old who makes more money than most PMETs with his Weird Whales NFTs
2) Tokenised funds will be a long-awaited innovation in the fund space (pg 128)
Meesari demonstrates his support for projects like the Index Cooperative (also known as Index Coop) that harnesses smart contracts to create a custom index fund of tokens. He listed two examples from Index Coop: the Defi Pulse Index and the Bankless BED Index. I'm going to just focus on the DPI here. The Defi Pulse Index tracks the performance of trending tokens across various decentralised finance platforms and protcols. Here's a screenshot from the Index Coop's website:
Image Credit: Image Coop
What I Know And Think: Here's a fun fact. Hodlnaut loans out a small part of our crypto assets to Compound Finance. This is why I was pleasantly surprised to find that Compound was one of the tokens that comprised the DPI index fund. There's nothing like a sweet sense of familiarity that kinda alleviates your anxiety about something outside your comfort zone, right? Other than Compound, I know the existence of Loopring because I finished a Learn and Earn programme on it, courtesy of Coinbase. And needless to say, PUBLISH0X rewards us readers and authors in the form of Farm tokens. I know some of these tokens but have not invested in them yet because seriously, which tokens do I back up with my hard-earned crypto portfolio?
I'm sure you will agree with me that the provision of crypto index funds is a great thing because it saves us from analysis paralysis. Buying a crypto index fund might hence just be the scaffolding some of us newbie investors need until we grow more acquainted with these tokens and wish to make bigger moves by purchasing them directly. A crypto index fund is also a prudent move because it helps us to diversify our investments. So that we don't feel the pinch so badly when 1 or 2 of these tokens suddenly veer violently from its market position and fall into oblivion.
On a side note, the DeFi chain is set to offer tokenised versions of stocks like Apple and Tesla. I think it's exciting how blockchain technology brings about the confluence of traditional and digital assets and creates something entirely new together.
3) The Messari analyst declares their crypto holdings on a monthly basis (pg 19)
There will be people who are more brilliant than me at unpacking the thoroughly curated content consolidated by Messari, so I thought I would zero in on something that crypto newbies and gurus alike will want to know. How many cryptocurrencies do other people typically own actually? More importantly, how many people just own BTC and ETH and how many others own BTC and ETH? So it was incredibly helpful for me to read the analysts' honest sharing. I went as far to check out their declarations on the Messari website. Make sense of my interpretation of these 30 analysts' holdings, if you will. And remember that I am far from qualified from dishing out financial advice. DYOR!
12 analysts don't hold BTC while 1 analyst only holds BTC.
Only 2 analysts don't hold both BTC and ETH while 1 analyst only holds these two cryptocurrencies. 2 analysts only hold ETH.
The majority of analysts (16 of them) hold 4 or 5 cryptocurrencies in their portfolio. 3 other analysts hold 3 cryptocurrencies; yet another 3 analysts hold 6 cryptocurrencies. Other than the sole analyst who is banking in on BTC, another analyst is holding a grand total of 9 cryptocurrencies.
Here is a list of popular altcoins these analysts are holding: SOL, LINK, ATOM, DOT, LUNA, RUNE. I was frankly astonished to learn that only 1 analyst holds ADA. Likewise for AAVE.
What I Know And Think: Similarly, ETH was the most commonly held cryptocurrency among Singaporeans in the "State of Crypto" survey commissioned by Gemini and facilitated by Seedly. I do hold BTC and ETH - and my eyebrows raised when I learnt that quite a significant number of analysts are forgoing BTC in favour of ETH. In fact, two analysts only have ETH, which reassured me a bit because with all this talk of up-and-coming Ethereum killers, I kinda wonder whether holding on to ETH will pay off in the long run. More importantly, I think it was awfully generous of the Messari team to be so transparent with their crypto investments because it underscored an important point: even analysts who work closely together in the same firm can adopt such radically different approaches in their personal crypto undertakings. For us Singaporeans who are always keen to know the magic pill, the perfect formula to acing a venture, we gotta be rather reassured to know that there is really no one-size-fits-all formula out there. We all have to do our research, ensure that our mind and gut are aligned in some sort of equilibrium - perfect or otherwise - and just act!
Well, I hope my article was of some use to you! Now, if you will excuse me, I need to get back to my daily grind of getting Satoshis from FireFaucet (https://firefaucet.win/ref/710499
