Which crypto projects are most expected in 2021?
Probably the most anticipated of all is Ethereum. In fact, after launching phase zero of the long process of upgrading to version 2.0 of the protocol in 2020, 2021 should be a good year to launch phase 1, and perhaps even phase 1.5.
The fact that, having been announced, phase zero started exactly when planned, and is basically proceeding as planned, leads one to believe that the expectations on phase 1 are also credible.
The key points are mainly two: the robustness of the new protocol, and above all its effectiveness.
The launch of the Beacon Chain in 2020 may try to partially satisfy the first point, but certainly not the second. So in reality, the expectations regarding phase zero were not Bitcoin System particularly ambitious. It was simply expected that everything would work as planned.
The real epoch-making step will be the launch of phase 1, and especially that of phase 1.5, which should already bring significant and obvious innovations, particularly with regard to the speed and cost-effectiveness of transactions.
Ethereum has an ever-increasing need to be able to support a significantly higher number of transactions than at present, as well as to avoid the network congestion that currently makes them slow and expensive at times.
Given the enormous success of decentralised finance on Ethereum in 2020, the expectations regarding the launch of phase 1, and especially phase 1.5, are truly remarkable.
From a practical, concrete point of view, it is hard to imagine that there will be other crypto projects with higher expectations.
There are certainly a lot of expectations of Bitcoin as well, but not so much from a technical point of view. It is more a matter of financial expectations, very much linked to the corresponding inflationary expectations of the dollar.
Polkadot and Cardano
Other crypto projects for which the expectations for 2021 are high are probably Cardano and Polkadot.
These projects are in some ways similar to Ethereum, but have not yet reached the user levels of their illustrious predecessor.
However, Cardano announces itself as ready, next year, to start being widely used as a basic infrastructure for launching decentralised applications.
It has to be said that similar expectations have already been nurtured in the past for other projects that set out to compete with Ethereum, and have always been disappointed: Cardano may not escape this kind of curse.
For Polkadot, however, the scenario is a little different. In fact, it is not intended to replace Ethereum, but to interact with other blockchains in order to promote interoperability.
The latter is in some ways a kind of holy grail of the blockchain, since it seems to be extremely useful, but until now no one has ever really managed to implement it.
This is why expectations are so high regarding Polkadot, as it seems to be the main candidate for finding the Holy Grail of interoperability between different blockchains.
Facebook and Libra
But the digital currency project that will be launched in 2021 and from which the most should probably be expected in reality is Diem, the former Libra.
Although it is not a real cryptocurrency, the project is still based on smart contracts and distributed ledgers.
The big difference with real crypto projects is that it is not a decentralised network, but the potential to change the way we are used to using money forever is considerable, in theory.
In fact, Facebook is behind Diem, and since until now only cryptocurrencies have been able to offer trustless programmable money (but only to a niche of people), many expect this project to succeed where Ethereum has failed so far: reaching the masses.