JPMorgan Shares Predictions on Crypto Markets, Ethereum's Upgrades, Defi, NFTs

Global investment bank JPMorgan has published a report on the future outlook of crypto markets, including Ethereum’s upgrades, decentralized finance (defi), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The bank sees “the cryptocurrency markets as increasingly relevant to financial services,” its analyst described.

JPMorgan Outlines Future Outlook for Crypto Markets

JPMorgan analyst Kenneth Worthington published a report on the 2022 outlook for crypto markets Friday. The analyst wrote:

The applications from crypto have only just begun. Web3.0, greater use of NFTs tokenization are in the line-of-sight for 2022.

JPMorgan sees “the tokenization and fractionalization as holding particularly large promise as transactions speeds in crypto become more competitive with trad-fi networks,” the analyst continued.

The report adds:

Defi was a bit of a flop in 2021, but still has strong potential in 2022 and beyond.

The analyst explained that the development of crypto technology will continue, driven by the scaling of Layer-1 and the introduction and growth of Layer-2. He added that Ethereum’s Merge and Layer 2.0 introduction will speed up transactions and could significantly cut energy consumption.

Worthington detailed:

The use cases for crypto markets will continue to grow and new projects and tokens with more and different use cases will surface.

Furthermore, the JPMorgan analysts noted that with these projects attached to tokens and Coinbase being a leading exchange to buy and sell tokens, “we see Coinbase as a leading direct beneficiary of crypto market growth.”

Worthington additionally said that if 2021 was the year of non-fungible tokens, then 2022 may be the year of the “blockchain bridge (driving greater interoperability of various chains) or the year of financial tokenization.” The JPMorgan analyst opined:

As such, we see the cryptocurrency markets as increasingly relevant to financial services.

A different JPMorgan report, published last week, states that Ethereum may lose its defi dominance due to scaling issues. Nonetheless, the global investment bank doubled down on its bitcoin price prediction of $146K in November last year.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon is still skeptical about cryptocurrency. He repeatedly warned about investing in cryptocurrencies, particularly bitcoin, stating that they have no intrinsic value.