The cryptocurrency market, following more than 10 years of evolution, has succeeded in reaching a level of maturity allowing it to see the emergence within it of well-defined sectors, where each of them offers its share of competitors.

Although the cryptocurrency market has long been driven by its use in the payment sector (Bitcoin, Litecoin, Monero, etc.), the launch of Ethereum was the genesis of a revitalization of the market as a whole, by the appearance of intelligent contracts or “smart contracts”.

This technological evolution has allowed the development of a new field of possibilities for blockchain technology. Indeed, decentralized applications have enabled a revolution in cryptocurrency exchanges (DEX), a disruption of a number of financial mechanisms (DeFi) and the establishment of a new perception of digital art (NFT) . We are also seeing promising sectors such as DAGs and decentralized storage.

Major sectors of the cryptocurrency market:

Some of these sectors are still in their infancy and several months/years of development will still be necessary for them to be able to offer stable products that can be used on a large scale.

Payment

As mentioned earlier, the payment sector has been the “killer app” of the blockchain. Bitcoin, the first case of application of this technology, is the crypto-currency that has carried the market since its creation in 2009. With a valuation of around 1.1 trillion dollars, it rubs shoulders with companies such as Meta (Facebook) and Tesla .

We can note several types of actors:

• Decentralized
• Substitutes for traditional channels
• Stablecoins backed by fiat currency
• Algorithmic stablecoins

Decentralized applications (Dapps)

The protocols that allow the creation of decentralized applications are based on the use of smart contracts. This innovation was at the origin of the upward movement of 2017, in particular through the possibility of carrying out ICOs. This sector uses the level of security offered by blockchain technology to enable the execution of contracts, autonomously, transparently and automatically. Here, conditions are recorded within a computer code, which once fulfilled, lead to the automatic execution of the underlying contract. This allows the development of applications in law, finance, health, real estate, video games, logistics, art, etc.

We can note several types of actors:

• First generation protocols
• Second generation protocols
• Interoperability Protocols
• Second layer protocols

Decentralized finance (DeFi)

Decentralized finance was one of the triggering events of the bull cycle in 2021. Its beginnings appear in early 2020; it then took several months for this enthusiasm to translate into a rationalization of the value offer and a real capitalization of this sector.

We can note several types of actors:

• Decentralized exchanges
• Lending and borrowing protocols
• Infrastructure protocols
• Synthetic Asset Protocols

Non-Fungible Token (NFT)

NFTs are driving the second bull wave of 2021. Blockchain's ability to create unique digital units capable of supporting multiple characteristics, from the color of a work of art to the right to collect rent from tokenized real estate, finally caught the public's attention at the start of the year. The appearance of the first NFT-related projects, such as Enjin, dates back to 2018.

We can note several types of actors:

• Protocols
• Metaverse
• Streaming
• Sport
• Video games

Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG)

DAGs are seen as a technological evolution of the blockchain. Some projects like IOTA, Hedera or Fantom develop solutions based 100% on this new solution, others like Avalanche only use it for part of the information processing.

The major benefit of this technological development lies in its ability to process a very large number of information exchanges, at high speed and for almost non-existent costs. This technology is just as well used in the field of payment (Nano), as in the field of dApps (Hedera, IOTA, Fantom, Holochain). However, this is still nascent and, at present, it is difficult to attest to its level of decentralization and its ability to respond to large-scale use of its system.

Decentralized storage (dCloud)

Like the services offered by Google, Amazon or Dropbox, several players in the blockchain community aim to offer a storage or data sharing service. The benefit of such solutions lies in decentralized storage, allowing a level of security, availability and traceability of information unmatched by current centralized players.

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