As the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc, forcing the global economy to come to an abrupt halt, the blockchain-cryptocurrency sector grew steadily. The last year saw a record-breaking bull run of crypto prices with some tokens going to the moon. But, they eventually crash-landed due to the inevitable price correction that followed the meteoric rise of token valuations. Two such projects that sharply climbed the price ladder were Polkadot (DOT) and Chainlink (LINK).
But Polkadot and Chainlink are worth discussing not just for their price tally. These are two of the most successful and innovative projects in the blockchain-crypto domain. Right from their inception, they have made significant contributions to the overall growth of the sector. On one hand, Polkadot has transformed the DeFi ecosystem with its customizable parachains, thus improving scalability and efficiency. On the other hand, Chainlink has diversified crypto’s use cases with its vast decentralized oracle network through on-chain-off-chain bridges.
In this article, we will tell you some of the phenomenal achievements of Polkadot and Chainlink in 2021. But before that, let us first tell you about the ups and downs of DOT and LINK prices throughout the year.
A Rollercoaster Ride For Crypto Prices
2021 was anything but steady for token prices, with steep 100% jumps and then a rapid fall of 50-80% in prices. Following is the price journey of DOT And LINK through the last year:
Polkadot (DOT)
Before January 2021, DOT prices hovered around the $3-5 mark during the latter half of 2020. But in the first few months of 2021, DOT surged steadily and reached $50 at one point of time. However, it eventually went through a major price correction with token prices decreasing around 80% between May and July 2021. DOT recovered in the following months peaking in November but ending in December with yet another 50% price correction.
Chainlink (LINK)
Towards the end of 2020, LINK prices were somewhere in the $7-15 range, but it surged steadily in 2021. At one point, LINK hit a high of $53 but started undergoing a price correction from May 2021. The token price came down by around 75% and kept hovering in the $13-38 mark in the following months. From November, there was a further price correction with the current prices somewhere around $20.
Looking Back At 2021, Looking Forward To 2022
Now that you know about the price trajectory of DOT and LINK tokens, we will now summarise the highlights of 2021. Keep reading to also know about some of the major upcoming events in 2022 from these two projects.
Polkadot
Kusama, the experimental Canary Network of Polkadot, meant for the pre-production testing of Polkadot-based projects, recorded a flurry of activities. In August 2021, Kusama auctioned parachain slots to some of the community projects that demonstrated their growth potential. It held a permissionless launch of 5 such parachains in the Kusama ecosystem where it will undergo rigorous testing.
Apart from its focus on parachains, Polkadot is also concentrating on creating a crowdloans system. Through this procedure, parachain teams can raise capital through crypto token bonds for participation in a parachain slot auction. Apart from further developing crowdloans, Polkadot has a lot of exciting things planned for 2022.
One of the most important areas of focus this year for the Polkadot team is optimizing its communication system. To this end, they will work specifically in developing the XCM consensus messaging format for seamless interaction between its components.
At the same time, Polkadot will also work towards launching parathreads through which anyone can securely participate in the ecosystem. These parathreads will remove the need to lease a dedicated parachain slot to build and develop on Polkadot.
Chainlink
Chainlink kickstarted its operations in 2021 with the mainnet launch of off-chain reporting, providing a smart contract enabled price feed system. In April, it launched the Chainlink 2.0 whitepaper, detailing its plans for the rest of the year, which would continue to 2022. Following are some of the major points on which Chainlink has worked and will continue to do so in the upcoming months:
- Hybrid Smart Contracts: The protocol is enhancing the capabilities of its smart contracts through integrating on-chain-off-chain resources.
- Scalability: Chainlink is working to reduce network latency and increase its thoroughput.
- Simple UX/UI: Developers are curating a simple interface with reduced complexities.
- Data protection: Chainlink is focusing on protecting user data and maintaining data confidentiality.
- Fair Ordering: The platform is working towards fair transaction sequencing and preventing unfair value extraction mechanisms.
- Trustless and High Security: Chainlink is developing its cryptographic models and designing a system of economic incentives to reward honest nodes.
These aforementioned technological innovations are helping Chainlink to diversify its use cases and push for advanced oracle technology.
2022 is going to be yet another year of major advancements in crypto technology with contributions from Polkadot and Chainlink. We will keep updating you about the latest developments in the crypto domain throughout the year. Watch this space for more!
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