KuCoin Labs Q2 Report Confirms DeFi, NFTs are Vital to Ongoing Development of Blockchain Industry

2021/09/02 13:03:39

KuCoin Labs released its 2021-Q2 Crypto Industry Quarterly Report today. The report covers many key developments in the blockchain and crypto space. Notably, the report reveals that decentralized or non-custodial exchanges (DEX) are gradually overtaking their centralized counterparts in terms of trading volume and visits. This trend was mainly driven by emerging DeFi startups and the NFT surge in this period.

The report from KuCoin Labs points out that CEX platforms will have to move to decentralized ecology in order to remain relevant and competitive in the fast-evolving crypto-assets market.

Other key takeaways from the report are that users attracted by NFT and memecoin are more likely to become DApp users, while those attracted by major tokens like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) often result in CEX. Both BTC and ETH addresses increased steadily during Q2 of this year. The rise in cryptocurrency addresses/wallets may be attributed, at least partially, to the “spillover” effect of NFTs becoming highly popular during Q2.

“We are glad to see that the first industry research report by KuCoin Labs goes live today. The report contains in-depth research on the major development trends and market performance of the crypto industry in Q2 2021, which can be considered as a significant reference for the industry research”, said Lou Yu, Head of KuCoin Labs, “KuCoin Labs possess a group of experts in research who regularly analyze industry developments and hot topics to provide their solid findings, explore and support high-quality blockchain projects, and contribute to a sustainable development of the ecosystem.”

The research findings from KuCoin Labs also noted that “in the face of the unexpected extreme market conditions and increasingly stringent market regulation, investors were more concerned about asset stability and risk avoidance.” It pointed out that “the needs for risk circumvention and value transfer led to growing demand for stablecoins.”

As stated in the report, “Overall, both the DeFi ecosystem and NFT market are critical to the development of the blockchain industry.” The report also pointed out that the impact of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s tweets was quite significant, especially when it came to investor sentiment and cryptocurrency prices. Additionally, the actions taken recently by China which included cracking down on the nation’s large BTC mining operations and not permitting cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to be used in business transactions imposed significant impact on the crypto market: “Every time Beijing issues a policy, the price of BTC would fall sharply”. The update from the report also covers US regulations and their impact on the crypto markets.

KuCoin Labs intends to release reports that will keep the industry as transparent and forward thinking as possible. For the whole report, please contact labs@kucoin.com.

Founded in May 2018, KuCoin Labs is the investment and research force of the KuCoin ecosystem. KuCoin Labs diversifies and intensifies investments into projects at a very early stage to help more builders achieve sustainable growth and success in the decentralized world. KuCoin Labs now possesses a portfolio of over 50 projects including Arweave, MultiVAC, CertiK, OneLedger, LUKSO and Ankr, in sectors such as infrastructure, DeFi, and NFT. In April 2021, KuCoin Labs established a 50 million fund to find the next crypto gem and empower the development of early-stage crypto projects.