Major US venture capital a16z announces “9 virtual currency trends to expect in 2024”

Trend forecast for 2024

On the 6th, major US VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) announced a list of trends it expects to see next year in the crypto asset (virtual currency) area. Nine items were mentioned, including decentralization, artificial intelligence (AI), and improving customer experience.

Just a few things we’re excited for in crypto (2024):

→ Entering a new era of decentralization
→ Resetting the UX of the future
→The rise of the modular tech stack
→ AI + blockchains come together
→ Play to earn becomes play and earn
→ When AI becomes the gamemaker,… pic.twitter.com/fiL4Eahwuy

— a16z crypto (@a16zcrypto) December 6, 2023

A new era of decentralization has arrived

Miles Jenning, General Counsel and Head of Decentralization at a16z, said that decentralization is “a tool that enables the democratization of systems” and “gives users more choice and ownership.” emphasized.

He points out that until now it has been difficult to achieve large-scale decentralization, but thanks to Web3’s “live laboratory” over the past few years, many best practices for decentralization have emerged.

It explains that it includes a “decentralized model that can support applications with rich functionality” and a “DAO (autonomous decentralized organization) method that adopts Machiavellian principles to design more effective decentralized governance.” did.

Improved user experience

Eddie Lazarin, chief technology officer of a16z Crypto, points out that the UX (user experience) of cryptocurrencies has basically not changed much since 2016 and is too complex for mass adoption. .

However, as developers are actively testing and deploying new tools, he said there is a “potential for a reset of the front-end UX (user experience) of cryptocurrencies over the next year.”

One such tool is a passkey, which simplifies logging into apps and websites on a user’s device all at once. Unlike passwords, which can be vulnerable, passkeys are automatically encrypted and generated.

Other features include programmable and easy-to-manage smart accounts, wallets embedded in apps, multi-party computation (MPC) that allows signing support without a third party managing the user’s keys, and user He cited advanced PRC (remote procedure call) that anticipates customer needs and fills in the blanks.

AI and blockchain

Currently, the training and operation of AI (artificial intelligence) models is limited to large technology companies, but a16z argues that blockchain technology has the potential to democratize AI innovation. There is.

By leveraging cryptography, “we can create multi-sided, global, permissionless markets,” where “everyone can create computations and new datasets for anyone who needs them.” “You can contribute by providing something to the network and get paid for it.”

As society becomes flooded with AI-generated information, there are concerns about things like deepfakes, but blockchain technology could also be used to track and address the origins of online content.

Additionally, in the case of games where AI generates elements, there needs to be a way to ensure that the game maker has reliable neutrality. investment partner Kara Wu argued that it can contribute by providing the ability to “improve penalties”.

NFT as a brand asset

a16z predicts that NFTs (non-fungible tokens) will become popular as digital brand assets in various companies and communities. This is largely due to improvements in the NFT transaction environment, such as storage wallets and L2 blockchain, over the past year.

Loyalty programs using NFTs and collectible NFT collections have already been developed, but future prospects include use cases for providing personalized experiences for customers and as a bridge between them and actual products. introduced.

SNARK becomes mainstream

SNARK (Succinct Non-interactive ARguments of Knowledge) is a type of cryptographic technique that can be used to verify calculations without revealing the underlying data.

Sam Ragsdale, investment engineer at a16z, believes that recent advances have made SNARK more “easy to use,” easing the cost and scalability challenges of using blockchain.

Possible use cases include upgrading Internet of Things (IoT) edge devices and embedding content authenticity and transformation data in media editing software.

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