Blockchain ecosystem: 2022 in review
In 2022, headlines painted a picture of doom and gloom for the blockchain industry. Cryptoassets were falling, major central entities (Celsius and FTX) collapsed because of liquidity and governance issues and there were charges again senior figures.
But in other parts of the ecosystem, the story was more positive. Decentralised Finance (DeFI) protocols functioned as designed and even saw double-digit growth after the FTX collapse, according to Blockchain analytics firm Nansen.
Meanwhile, traditional financial markets have borrowed blockchain technologies and slowly embraced tokenised assets due to the benefits of reduced cost, atomic settlement and increased liquidity.
Among them, HSBC recently announced the launch of a distributed-ledger technology bond tokenisation platform. It will potentially issue a GBP tokenised bond and the firm plans to use it to facilitate digital bond issuance, using permissioned blockchain infrastructure.
In a similar vein, some central banks have explored and implemented blockchain as an enabler of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).