It is said that it’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. At the end of every year, we take a few minutes to reflect on what has happened and compare that to what we thought would happen. This time of reflection is vital in our line of work - after all, designing and implementing strategies in niche and fragmented markets like digital identity requires an ability to look up from the short term and the trivial to view the long term and the essential.
Beyond just our predictions last year, 2021 was a year with more ups than downs, a few radically unexpected events, and what feels like a collective agreement that everything needs to improve - that there is no time left to sit back and wait. We saw the market recognize the importance of digital identity, pumping over $25B in investment dollars into the space. A release valve for pent-up capital, the SPAC market boomed, busted, and has started to rally again. Bitcoin stalwarts institutionalized a brand change to decentralized finance (or DeFi for short), shifting the conversation away from who was using this technology to how this technology can be used to make transactions more efficient. We ended the year with Facebook’s announcement of Meta, a final signal that the metaverse is coming and Ready Player Two will need to become mandatory reading alongside 1984.
In addition to selecting a few of our best predictions, we thought it would be fun to share our internal list of solution solutions and startups to watch in 2022. We are even dropping a few hints about some of the changes to the landscape for 2022.
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