“Next year will truly be the year of NFTs,” says the CEO of crypto exchange Kraken. She shares her favorite projects and explains why she’s both “declining” and “hopeful” about the metaverse. Despite short-term bearish volatility, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell isn’t expecting a crypto winter anytime soon. Details cryptocoin.com‘in.
Advice from Powell
After a frenzied journey that saw Bitcoin rise to an all-time high of around $69,000 in 2021, the crypto market is swimming in a sea of red. Weak trading towards the end of the year surprised one of the industry’s biggest and most experienced bulls. “I was expecting that by the end of the year we would be higher by now,” Jesse Powell, CEO of crypto exchange Kraken, said in an interview. In June, Powell said he saw the digital currency hit six figures by the end of the year, amid another surge of volatility that plunged the price of Bitcoin to $30,000. With less than two weeks to the end of the year and Bitcoin hovering around $47,000, that lofty target no longer seems to be achieved. But growing mainstream awareness and increased regulatory clarity suggest that 2022 could start a better year for the biggest cryptocurrency.
While Powell doesn’t think a major crypto winter is just around the corner, he said he will buy more Bitcoin if it drops below $40,000. Powell: “You’re just looking at the 10-year chart and it tells you all you need to know. It outperformed any other asset in the world,” he says. With central banks tightening their monetary policy and planning rate hikes, some experts have warned the industry could expect a jolt soon. According to the CEO, this could test high-growth crypto exchanges like Kraken, which doubled the number of clients last year and increased their spot and futures trading volumes by 420% to over $750 billion.
NFTs will be ‘something much bigger’ in 2022
As competition between crypto trading hubs heats up, exchanges including Binance, FTX, and Coinbase have all launched or announced plans for marketplaces for non-tradable tokens, which have reached $22 billion in global trading volume this year, according to DappRadar. Like late-night show host Jimmy Fallon, NBA basketball player Stephen Curry, and billionaire Mark Cuban, Powell owns one of 10,000 NFTs in the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection and also plans to launch his own play-to-win game.
In 2022, Powell thinks NFTs have become “something much bigger,” not only because of the aesthetic values and prestige associated with owning certain NFTs, but also because of use cases such as monitoring resources, borrowing and lending. For example, crypto lender Nexo has recently partnered with hedge fund Three Arrows Capital to allow clients to borrow stablecoins and other digital currencies using NFTs as collateral. “I really think next year will be the year of the NFTs,” says Powell. It points to some projects. Besides BAYC, his favorite NFT collections include LetsWalk, a project by animator DeeKay Kwon; community-focused collection project Doodles; and NFT studio RTFKT, which was recently acquired by sportswear giant Nike, has the CLONE X project.
What does it say about the metaverse?
Decentralized worlds, especially those branded as the metaverse, have exploded since Facebook changed its corporate name to “Meta” in October. Digital land prices skyrocketed and metaverse-linked tokens took the stage as analysts rushed to name the metaverse for the next multi-trillion-dollar opportunity. As a Decantraland (MANA) fan, he said these virtual worlds still need to find a way to keep people on the platform and let them immerse themselves in it. powell says:
I doubt people will want to spend a significant amount of their time plugged into a VR headset in the future. Maybe headphones will get better, smaller and more comfortable… I think these technologies will be the key, providing fundamentally more immersive experiences.
In his view, the metaverse is more likely to consist of different virtual worlds that serve different purposes, such as playing games or socializing, rather than being a universal space where people gather online. This also means that users may be less likely to stick with one platform, which will limit growth. Powell said that despite the utility of certain digital features, the current usurpation of virtual land on the blockchain-based metaverse base is “highly speculative.” Powell says: “If people start leaving town or your friends start leaving town for a new city, it just creates this snowball effect. Everything can lose a lot of value very quickly unless it grows continuously. So I think it’s a bit of a risky game, but if it goes really well, some of these could be good investments in the long run.”
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