The State of ICP: 2022 Report

Everyone using the Internet Computer knows that we are early. The question is: How early, and where are we going in the near future? We’re going to report on the five essential things you need to know about being part of the ICP ecosystem in 2022.

#1 We’re in a Developer’s Season

Price action in the crypto world is cyclical. What some refer to as winter – we call a developer’s season. In “summer,” crypto prices rise dramatically. This increases interest in the blockchain. It gets the attention of new investors and new creators alike. These investors, creators, developers, and community members bring new ideas to the table.

But at some point, the interest cools. The prices begin to decline, and that’s when new ideas turn into various startups and projects. Developers begin creating the next generation of dApps. Prices struggle the most during this time, but it’s also an exciting season. What happens in a developer’s season is what triggers the next crypto "summer."

So while we are in the colder part of the cycle right now, look at it as an opportunity. Developers are creating. Look for the dApps, NFT collections, and DeFi opportunities that can help you to break free financially. In other words, now is the time that you can get in early on the projects you believe in before we hit the next part of the cycle.

This is not investment advice – it’s just an observation of the feedback loop wherein innovation creates the next cycle of interest in a blockchain. The pop-culture quote “if you build it, they will come” has proven to be true in crypto over and over again.

#2 Web3 Is Creating a Wonderland for Developers

Web2 platforms create gains for themselves. Web3 platforms create gains for creators. On Web2, the ultimate profits go to Meta, Google, Twitter, Amazon, and other tech and social giants. In Web3, creators get most of the proceeds. Take Entrepot, for example. They literally only take 1% of secondary market sales. Consider some shocking statistics from investor Andreessen Horowitz:

· The average Facebook user receives 10 cents in revenue.

· The average YouTube channel makes $405 in revenue.

· The average Spotify artist makes $636 in revenue.

· The average NFT creator makes $174,000 in revenue (these estimates are for the 2021 calendar year).

So the leap from Web2 to Web3 has shifted revenues from tech corporations to developers and creators. This is precisely the point of Web3. Think of how many lives have been changed – how much financial freedom has been acquired – in just the past year alone, thanks to Web3. This is the movement people have been waiting for, and the Internet Computer is offering the most authentic Web3 experience with everything happening on-chain rather than on AWS (for example).

#3 Crypto Is Already Helping to Balance the Financial System

Banks have failed to create financial freedom for people in general. In reality, the banks grow richer by the day, and most people are not benefiting from them at all. In fact, it is estimated that about 1.7 billion people don’t even have a bank account of their own. But anyone can have a crypto wallet. There is no fee to create a Bitfinity wallet. And there are no fees to maintain the wallet.

It is no wonder that the demand for decentralized finance (DeFi) is growing exponentially. And there is no better blockchain for DeFi than the Internet Computer. The Internet Computer is truly decentralized and runs on-chain (rather than seeing many dApps on AWS and other centralized hosting services). It is also positioning itself as the blockchain singularity.

Bitcoin integration is already well underway, and Ethereum integration will immediately follow. This means that you will be able to swap, stake, and create tokens on one blockchain. This is why InfinitySwap chose the Internet Computer as the place to develop our platform. There is no better place to offer people a way to beat the existing financial system that is biased toward the rich and powerful.

DeFi is already having a life-changing impact on many people. In fact, by asset management, there are only 30 banks in the world that manage more money than what is estimated to be locked in DeFi. This is only going to expand as the Internet Computer makes DeFi even more decentralized and accessible to the masses.

#4 Thousands of Developers Are Joining the Internet Computer

The Supernova Hackathon, sponsored by the DFINITY Foundation as well as crypto giants like Huobi, has brought thousands of developers to the ecosystem. Now that these developers have gotten a taste of true Web3 development, there is no going back. We are seeing dApps like Kinic (a Web3 search engine) and Internet Computer Footprint (a carbon offset for dApps) pioneering the way toward a future where anything you can do on Web2, you can do on Web3 without having to funnel funds to a global tech corporation or add to the mistreatment of the planet.

From Web3 dApps that replace Web2 apps to innovative new dApps that provide mind-blowing utility, the developers who are flocking to the Internet Computer are driving the cutting-edge tech that is going to bring more interest to ICP in the future.

#5 Unmatched Blockchain Affordability

According to another study by Andreessen Horowitz, we get these shocking figures about how transaction fees drain blockchains of funds.

· Average transaction fees paid by ETH users in a seven-day period: $15,249,254

· Average transaction fees paid by BNB users in a seven-day period: $1,304,470

· Average transaction fees paid by AVAX users in a seven-day period: $821,128

· Average transaction fees paid by MATIC users in a seven-day period: $93,890

· Average transaction fees paid by SOL users in a seven-day period: $62,041

Transaction fees on the Internet Computer work on a reverse gas model. As a result, the fee for every transaction is identical: 0.0001 ICP. At the current ICP price, that’s a fraction of a penny per transaction. In fact, the price of ICP would have to hit $1,000 per coin for transaction fees to reach 10 cents.

Anyone Using the Internet Computer Is Really Early

There are nearly five billion people in the world using the internet. There are only about 250,000 people interacting with the Internet Computer blockchain (according to one estimate). You can’t get any earlier than this. InfinitySwap looks forward to taking this incredible journey into Web3 and DeFi with you!

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*Disclaimer: While every effort is made on this website to provide accurate information, any opinions expressed or information disseminated do not necessarily reflect the views of InfinitySwap itself.