Blockchain hailed as a groundbreaking technology of the 21st century with the potential to revolutionize industries and reshape global financial and informational transactions, has not fully realized its revolutionary potential even fifteen years after its introduction alongside Bitcoin.

Like many emerging technologies, Blockchain is progressing unevenly instead of a seamless and immediate transformation. It instills significant changes and fosters new business models in certain sectors while encountering challenges in others.

Numerous predictions from tech experts, industry analysts, and reports over the past year indicate that this pattern is likely to persist. However, they emphasize that there is substantial forward momentum in Blockchain’s development.

Looking ahead to 2024 and beyond, Blockchain projects are expected to continue evolving, particularly in decentralized finance (DeFi), focusing on cryptocurrency, where the technology initially gained prominence and still demonstrates its capabilities. Nevertheless, the anticipation extends beyond DeFi, with Blockchain advancements anticipated in other domains.

Let’s look at the top trends in Blockchain in 2024.

#1 Real-World Asset Tokenization

Real-World Asset Tokenization (RWA) involves representing tangible assets like real estate, fine art, credit, and precious metals as digital tokens on a Blockchain.

Yearly, an increasing number of traditional financial institutions seek to capitalize on tokenization’s advantages, driven by secure and decentralized trading, transparent property rights, and fractionalization.

For less liquid tangible assets such as real estate and fine art, tokenization facilitates dividing ownership rights for a commercial building or valuable artwork into thousands of digital tokens. This breaks down entry barriers for small investors, enabling seamless and instantaneous trading of property rights on the Blockchain.

The transparency offered by Blockchain also permits buyers to examine and verify the transaction history of real estate, fine art pieces, and classic cars.

Intangible assets like copyrights, trademarks, and patents, typically documented in paper or digital formats, stand to benefit significantly from tokenization. The property rights of owners to these copyrights, trademarks, or patents are immutably stored on the Blockchain. Once tokenized, these intellectual properties become tamper-proof, traceable, and verifiable in real-time.

#2 DePIN

Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) captured significant attention from the crypto community in 2023, and this interest is expected to expand further, drawing broader investor focus in 2024, particularly due to its alignment with the artificial intelligence (AI) sector.

What are DePINs? DePINs are Blockchain protocols designed to establish, sustain, and manage physical infrastructure in an open and decentralized fashion. This physical infrastructure encompasses hardware elements such as hotspot routers for wireless connectivity, GPU chips for computing, or data centers for file storage.

A notable example is Filecoin, a cryptocurrency-driven peer-to-peer storage network enabling users to store and retrieve data. Suppliers are rewarded with FIL tokens for delivering reliable storage services.

Other DePIN networks include providers of computing resources like Render, Theta Network, and Akash, which encourage users to contribute graphic processing unit (GPU) computing power.

Helium, on the other hand, operates as a decentralized wireless network, motivating users to extend wireless network coverage through hotspots.

The appeal of DePIN networks lies in their ability to provide an open and permissionless marketplace for infrastructure, catering to diverse industries such as media, gaming, AI, information services, or life sciences.

#3 Blockchain-as-a-Service

As the Technology-as-a-Service concept gains momentum, a surge in the availability of Blockchain platforms is anticipated. In essence, Blockchain-as-a-Service empowers users to leverage the full capabilities of this technology without the need to establish their platform. Clients can tap into the cloud, develop applications, execute smart contracts, and benefit from the robust existing infrastructure.

Multiple providers, with Amazon being among them, currently offer BaaS, and the expectation is for additional companies to enter and contribute to this expanding market.

#4 Data Availability Layers

The future trajectory of Blockchain points toward modularity, indicating a departure from a singular Blockchain system overseeing all aspects of settlement, execution, and consensus. Instead, the modular approach envisions individual Blockchains handling specific operations, fostering scalability and specialization within Blockchain networks.

Data availability layers emerge as an off-chain solution for Blockchains seeking to store and validate their transaction data. On-chain data storage can congest the Blockchain, necessitating nodes to upgrade hardware to accommodate the growing volume of transactions continually.

Data availability layers alleviate this strain by enabling Blockchains to offload their data storage requirements, ensuring historical transaction data is readily accessible for verification. Consequently, these layers contribute to scalability and enhance the security of peer Blockchains.

The discourse surrounding data availability gained prominence in 2023, particularly in the context of Ethereum’s rollup-centric scaling roadmap. With the emergence of more specialized rollups, the demand for data availability solutions is anticipated to rise proportionately.

In October 2023, Celestia marked a milestone as the first modular data availability Blockchain to launch its mainnet. Other notable players in data availability Blockchains include NEAR’s data availability layer (NEAR), Avail, and EigenDA.

#5 Restaking

Yield farming is a driving force for crypto investors, and restaking protocols are intensifying this market trend.

In simple terms, restaking involves locking up liquid staking tokens (LST) to generate additional yield. For instance, when staking ether (ETH) on platforms like Lido and Rocket Pool, investors receive corresponding LSTs like stETH and rETH as proof of their stake. With restaking protocols, investors can further increase their yield by staking these stETH and rETH tokens.

Financially, restaking mirrors the concept of yield farming. While yield farming involves a series of steps across various decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, requiring investors to stake, lend, and restake cryptocurrencies, LSTs, and other receipt tokens, restaking simplifies this process, making it accessible to a broader audience.

From a technical perspective, restaking not only offers added utility to LST protocols, which gained popularity following Ethereum’s transition from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus, but it also enhances security for rollup applications in a manner akin to staking securing Layer1 Blockchains like Ethereum. Restaking thus presents a novel approach to bolstering crypto-economic security.

Bottom Line

Blockchain’s revolutionary promise, conceived alongside Bitcoin, unfolds unevenly. Focused on 2024, pivotal trends emerge: Real-World Asset Tokenization transforms tangible and intangible assets; DePIN networks align Blockchain with physical infrastructure; the Blockchain-as-a-Service sector grows, empowering users to harness Blockchain capabilities effortlessly; modular Data Availability Layers enhance scalability and security; and Restaking protocols amplify yield for crypto investors. These trends signify the multifaceted evolution of Blockchain applications, reflecting ongoing advancements and diversification.

Despite the decentralized landscape’s complex trajectory, the technology’s transformative journey propels forward, shaping diverse industries and reinforcing its potential impact on the global landscape.