3 Blockchain and Crypto Trends to Watch Out for in 2023

Pan-African payments app, Chipper Cash, has laid off 50 employees across multiple departments, with the engineering department losing 60% of staff.

According to Techcrunch, many employees took to LinkedIn to reveal this situation which has affected 12.5% of the company’s employees.

“This morning, a significant amount of Chipper staff were let go in a layoff. While I was not among them, many of my close colleagues and friends were. If you’re looking for talented engineering leadership, engineers, technical program managers, analysts, or IT staff…,” Erin Fusaro, the VP of Engineering at Chipper Cash said in her LinkedIn post.

Chipper made headlines when it raised $150 million in a series C extension that valued the company at $2 billion making it one of only 5 unicorns in Africa. The round was led by bankrupt crypto platform, FTX, financing about $40 million of the round as the 2 companies also explored how FTX users in Africa could use Chipper Cash to move funds on and off the FTX trading platform.

In November 2022, FTX clipped Chipper Cash’s valuation to $1.25 billion. This was revealed by a recent spreadsheet containing Alameda Research investment portfolio, indicating that Chipper Cash received an additional $35 million in SAFE from FTX at a $1.25 billion valuation.

The spreadsheet, obtained by Financial Times, includes nearly 500 companies with 7 from Africa that FTX saw as its investmets:

• Ovex ($5 million from FTX at a $122 million valuation)
• AZA Finance ($25 million promissory note/loan)
• African mobile money unicorn, Wave ($10 million in equity)
• South African crypto exchange platform VALR ($4 million equity)
• Nigerian crypto exchange startup, Bitnob ($500,000 from FTX at a $20 million valuation);
• Nestcoin  ($250,000 equity from FTX at a $30 million valuation)
• Congolese-based web3 startup, Jambo ($500,000 in tokens)

It is thought that some of FTX’s and Alameda’s portfolio companies didn’t receive the full amount of investments stated in the financials due to the ensuing insolvency.

In November 2022, another FTX investee, Nestcoin, a startup that builds, operates, and invests in Web3 applications for Africa, said it was forced to release some of its employees following the FTX bankruptcy.

Nestcoin which raised a $6.45 million pre-seed investment in February 2022 with several participants, including Alameda Research, said it had some of its funds stuck on the defunct exchange, affecting its operations. According to founder, Yele Bademosi, some of the money they raised was held in FTX, either as stablecoins or cash.

The revealed document does not indicate how Chipper’s funding was denominated nor how it was structured, but the company is evidently facing problems.

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2023 should be a very interesting year for crypto with the up-and-down year the markets just went through.

A lot of coins are at a bargain price at the moment, and we’re seeing strong support across the board, which is a strong indication that they could pick up steam this year. We should see a lot of action going on the blockchain side as well with things like NFTs and the metaverse getting more and more attention.

Let’s take a look at three trends to watch out for in the world of crypto and the blockchain in 2023. 

Ethereum’s Revival 

All eyes will be on Ethereum this coming year with the release of its Shanghai update, which will have a huge impact on its staking protocol. The Shanghai update will make it much easier for people to take out staked coins from the blockchain, which used to be a major issue for Ethereum.

This could push more people to want to stake coins on the network and significantly increase interest in the coin. And, if we look at the Ethereum live price index at OKX, we can see that ETH is clearly showing support at around the $1,200 mark, and if price history is any indication, then there’s a strong chance that it will have a great year.

Then there’s the fact that Ethereum and NFTs are closely tied, and since  NFTs should continue to grow in popularity, so should Ethereum. 

Solana Should Pick up Steam as Well 

Solana is another coin that should be on everyone’s radar, largely because of its association with NFTs. Solana may not emerge as the ‘Ethereum killer’ everyone is waiting for, but the gap between the two coins could be narrowing down within the next year. 

People now know the benefits of minting and buying NFTs over Solana’s blockchain which is much faster and cheaper than Ethereum’s. And the people behind the project are well respected by the community.

There’s also the fact that Solana markets itself as an eco-friendly blockchain, which could help it gain the favor of increasingly eco-conscious investors. 

The Rise of Blockchain Gaming 

Blockchain gaming should also start to get taken more seriously this year. More people are now aware of play-to-earn gaming and are seeing it as a legitimate way to earn cryptocurrency.

Games are getting more sophisticated too, and we’ve heard major studios like Epic Games showing a growing interest in the blockchain. It’s unlikely that we’ll see a major AAA  title on the blockchain this year, but we shouldn’t be surprised if we hear about major studios either announcing plans for one or starting to use the blockchain to manage some aspects of their games.

We could also see a few major studios capitalize on the NFT hype and release a few of their own. 

Conclusion 

2023 should be big year for crypto, and if you were observing from the sidelines, now could be a perfect time to get in the markets.

But, before you decide to invest in crypto or NFTs, make sure that you know as much as you can about them, and get involved with the community as much as possible.

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