Crypto.com has revisited the cryptocurrency highlights of 2020 in its yearly market review. The report also makes several predictions regarding cryptocurrency trends in 2021. 

Bitcoin Is Still Growing

According to Crypto.com’s annual report, the cryptocurrency market is still in its infancy. It found that there are only about 73 million crypto users worldwide, a mere 1% of the global population. 

Furthermore, even though crypto markets have grown rapidly and achieved a capitalization of $1 trillion over the past year, the market’s size is still minuscule compared to traditional finance. For instance, pension fund assets in 37 OECD countries alone total $32 trillion, dwarfing the total cryptocurrency market cap.

Crypto.com suggests that investors should expect continued inflows via new entrants and institutional investors. One of the strongest indicators of rising institutional adoption in 2021 will be growth in the options market, which should appeal to traditional finance.

Finally, the firm expects that the regulators will increasingly impose operating licenses on crypto firms and collect money from the sector.

Ethereum and DeFi Prediction

Crypto.com also examined Ethereum in detail. The company’s report predicts that the growth of decentralized finance (DeFi) will continue in 2021. Moreover, the firm expects that DeFi projects that are easy to invest in, such as aggregators and decentralized asset managers, will gain popularity. 

On the negative side, Crypto.com highlighted the fact Ethereum is “in dire need of an upgrade in scalability.” Layer-2 solutions like Plasma, sidechains, ZK-Rollups, and Optimistic Rollups are already underway. Nevertheless, the firm predicts that some applications will migrate to competing blockchains for greater efficiency. 

Crypto.com additionally noted that Ethereum should also witness a continued uptick in trading related to non-fungible tokens (NFT), especially digital artwork and crypto collectibles.

Disclosure: The author held Bitcoin and Ethereum at the time of publication.