Top 7 Crypto Ideas and Primitives Picking Up Steam This Cycle

Key Points

• Adoption of existing crypto primitives and ideas is possible due to scaling and infrastructure investment.
• Innovation allows rising interest in stablecoins, DeFi, RWA, Gaming, DePin, Prediction Markets, and more.

Alpha Please research team reveals possible adoption of existing ideas and primitives in the crypto industry due to innovation.

In a recent post via X, the team notes that the current cycle feels much like the overestimation of the short-term and the underestimation of the long-term so far, but positivity on the overall timeline has also to be highlighted.

Top 7 Adopted Ideas and Primitives in Crypto

Alpha Please notes 7 existing ideas and primitives adopted in the crypto industry due to innovation.

1. Stablecoins

Stablecoins’ volume is currently rising and new payment gateways are opening up including Shopify and Stripe. Also, big existing businesses are committing huge funds to bootstrap their own stablecoin and the best example is PayPal’s PYUSD.

2. DeFi

Aave hit record numbers of weekly active borrowers in August after outstanding borrows recorded yearly highs of $16 billion in July. Also, the DEX vs. DEX spot volume ratio hit an ATH of 14% in July.

According to the same data, all centralized brokers going down with the recent market crash in August cemented DeFi’s PMF.

3. RWAs and Tokenization

The total RWA value excluding stablecoins is rising exponentially, after hitting $11 billion in August. This includes US treasuries, private credit, corporate bonds, commodities, non-US governmental debt, and stocks as well.

They mentioned BlackRock’s launch of their first tokenized fund on a public blockchain, and Swift, the DTCC, and major banks completing real tokenization POCs. Also, Chainlink and capital markets look like they are on the brink of becoming interoperable with blockchains.

4. Prediction Markets

The team at Alpha Please mentions Polymarket which became the biggest prediction market for US elections. This is another idea in the Ethereum whitepaper that is finally seeing adoption.

5. DePin

Helium continues to grow and usage by 2 large US carriers that have initiated tests to offload their traffic onto the Helium Mobile network of over 100,000 subs with a monthly price of $20. This is a clear sign that DePin networks can challenge or complement monopolies to help customers.

6. Gaming

Regarding the gaming sector, the team mentioned Off the Grid, a next-gen cyberpunk F2P battle royale that is now being tested on PS5. This is a blockchain game tested on a major console which looks very good, according to Alpha Please.

According to them, this is a great opportunity for bringing more people on-chain.

7. Crypto Debit Cards

On-chain self-custodial checking accounts are working smoothly these days, with various debit cards allowing people to spend on-chain assets. Such cards are Gnosis Pay and Holyheld. This is another achievement highlighting crypto and blockchain adoption.

According to Alpha Research, all these ideas have been implemented due to infrastructure investment and continuous scaling. The team expects more similar ideas and primitives to pick up steam over the next two years.

Amara’s Law

In their post, Alpha Please shared a graph revealing Amara’s Law: Blockchain Adoption. This highlights how people overestimate the impact of new technologies in the short term while underestimating their long-term impact.

The graph shows the expected impact vs the actual impact of tech innovation.

According to their graph, the expected impact usually tends to differ from the actual impact which is increasing, despite a hype in expectations that usually decreases after a while.