The blockchain industry has come a long way over the past decade, moving from a relatively unknown technology into something that has permeated into industries around the world. With huge community support and financial backing, crypto projects have sprung up in everything from gaming to cybersecurity.

Even after the market downturn throughout the first half of 2022, the cryptocurrency market still has a total market cap of around $1 trillion dollars, demonstrating the huge faith that still remains in this field. A large part of that faith comes back to the fantastic projects that are heading up this industry, with certain projects actively revolutionizing blockchain and the real-world applications of this technology.

In this article, we’ll explore the top ten most revolutionary crypto projects in 2022, demonstrating exactly what these projects do, their impact, and why they’ve become such cultural and technological phenomena within blockchain.

In no particular order, we’ll be covering:

• Sandbox – Gaming
• PIP – Social Media
• Apeiron – Play2Earn
• HyperDEX – DeFi
• Hectagon – Web3 VC
• Serenity Shield – Strongbox
• Ambire – Web3 Wallet
• Minima – Node Decentralization
• Fashion League – Fashion
• Naoris Protocol – Cybersecurity

Let’s get right into it.

Sandbox – Gaming

The Sandbox is one of the leading games within the MetaVerse, with this entire Ethereum-based ecosystem allowing players to create their own experiences in their own virtual world. Founded upon a central cryptocurrency of $SAND, Sandbox allows players to create their own NFTs, build games, inspire communities, and play together in more ways than you can imagine.

Instead of dictating a specific gaming experience, as is common with the vast majority of online games, Sandbox helps players build and play through whatever experiences they would like. As a player, you’re able to use VoxEdit to create in-game NFT assets. These assets can either be sold on the Sandbox marketplace for crypto, or used within the game to further the individuality of each gaming session.

Within The Sandbox, players can use the Game Maker to design and execute their own gaming experience, allowing absolutely anyone to craft their own mini-games without the need to learn complex coding. With this, players from around the world have flocked to The Sandbox for the unlimited creativity it instills.

Currently, The Sandbox is actively becoming a cultural phenomenon, with this decentralized game boasting a player base of over 16,000,000 unique individuals. This title has revolutionized what people thought gaming could be, with its impressive creativity-driven model of gaming using blockchain technology to further the experience for the players, and alongside the players.

PIP – Social Media

One of the biggest changes that we’ve seen to the internet over the last two decades has been the arrival and complete popularization of social media. It’s difficult to find someone that now doesn’t actively use social media, with almost 5 billion profiles worldwide, totaling nearly 60% of the entire world’s population using a platform at least once per day.

With the arrival of blockchain technology, the era of Web3 is certainly underway, with applications of this technology allowing social media to become even more advanced. One of the leading projects within the social media Web3 space is PIP, which integrates into currently available platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

A main concern that people have with Web3-centric social media platforms is adaptability, with people not wanting to move all of their information to a new platform. PIP solves this issue by directly integrating into the already existing and wildly popular Web2 social media sphere. PIP actively provides scalable cryptocurrency protocols like Solana into social media platforms, instantly and impressively bridging the gap between social media in Web2 and Web3.

With their aim being to create a peer-to-peer economy, centering their project within a space that is all about social connection – social media – allows them to do so with incredible ease and efficiency. From transacting currencies or providing digital value within social platforms to creating crypto-ownership that is directly tied to social identity, this platform empowers individuals around the globe through its integration.

While still a young Web3 project, only being founded in August of 2021, PIP is already making waves in both Web2 and Web3 spaces, bringing crypto onboarding to a never-before-seen level.

Apeiron – Play2Earn

Gaming was one of the first industries to see the incredible impact that blockchain can have, with the invention of Play2Earn gaming creating a wave of new experiences for players. Play2Earn is where players are rewarded with cryptocurrency for their time spent playing, with complete objectives or performing well in a match, providing them with more tokens. This system has brought an entirely new element to gaming, with this relaxing pastime now becoming a way that absolutely anyone can generate money.

As the world’s very first Godgame using blockchain technology, Apeiron has taken the concept of P2E and ran with it, including NFTs as a central part of their gaming experience. Apeiron allows users to find and collect NFT planets, stars, and relics within the game, which users can then put to work to enhance their own experience.

Equally, as each player owns the NFTs that they find, they could choose to sell them for further crypto rewards, or use them to build even more distinct NFT assets. There are hundreds of thousands of different combinations that players can achieve, each one resulting in the minting of a unique NFT that can benefit the player in game or financially through selling on the global market.

Players have full control over their gaming experience, shaping the worlds they play upon and using any playstyle that they would like. From allying with friends to battling other online players, this action RPG adventure is brought to life by blockchain technologies. The game has three cryptocurrencies, each of which rewards and provides different experiences.

This whole game is based on, and built with, blockchain technologies, demonstrating the extent to which it has revolutionized what many thoughts was possible with blockchain gaming. Although still relatively early in its lifecycle, Apeiron is an impressive project with a huge community backing to show for it.

HyperDEX – DeFi

Asset management is a leading industry at present, with around $258 billion USD being spent each year, with this figure currently growing at 25.9% annually. Although prolific, one of the largest barriers to entry within the world of investing is a simple lack of knowledge that stops people from acting.

This is especially the case when it comes to decentralized finance, with the vast majority of Americans not understanding cryptocurrency or its real-world applications. Even with major benefits from staking and yield farming, people don’t have the knowledge to act, limiting what they can do with their own finances.

Hyperdex, a decentralized asset management platform, removes the main barriers to investing, making DeFi something approachable, simplistic, and effortless. Instead of giving new investors the whole world of different possibilities, like is common with traditional investing routes, HyperDex instead provides three main investing routes:

• Fixed Income – Money is returned passively on the investment at a fixed rate, helping to bring much-needed predictability to the complicated world of cryptocurrencies.
• Algorithm Trading – An automated trading protocol that uses statistical arbitrage, this is a higher result stream that is fantastic for those looking for more stable returns.
• Race – The lowest entry fee investing route, this is based on decentralized trustless prediction, with users speculating the outcomes of different cryptos’ future prices and taking an aggressive approach to their investing.

Each one of these options is broken down within Hyperdex, with recommendations based on how much risk an individual wants to take with their investment. These so-called ‘Investment Cubes’ simplify investing, allowing absolutely anyone to get into trading cryptos without any worry.

Hyperdex makes investing in cryptocurrency easy, taking away the knowledge barrier that deters so many beginner investors. With their in-platform education system, you can learn more about the market while actively involved, helping to ease new investors even further into the world of blockchain and cryptos.

Hectagon – Web3 VC

One aspect of the world of blockchain that has become incredibly successful over the past few years is the concept of decentralized autonomous organizations, which is where there are no leaders of a platform but rather the community itself runs the entire company. This works by using tokenization, with community members buying and using their crypto tokens as expressions of their right to vote. With this, a community can actively build, lead, and make decisions without relying on one central CEO or leadership team.

In the world of venture capitalism, community-driven investing has rarely been the case, with the vast majority of firms being led by a few key players that make all the main decisions. Hectagon, founded by Lin Han, who has over 10 years of experience in traditional Web 2 VC work, takes the idea of a DAO and applies it to venture capitalism within blockchain.

Absolutely anyone can join this platform, buy cryptocurrency, and then use that to invest in new venture capitalist projects that are currently being run by Hectagon. Web 3 projects are user-driven and user-focused, making this DAO system for investing with VC funds the perfect opportunity.

The tokenization model that Hectagon offers removes the barrier of entry to VC, allowing anyone to get involved with exciting new projects. This system has seen incredible success since its beginning, with over 20,000 community members now actively voting on new businesses, investing in their favorite picks, and suggesting new startups to choose in the Web3 space.

With social and community support at the center of this project, the direction is communal, while the focus allows further web3 projects to secure funding and enter into this space. This project is followed by incredible investors and notable advisors from the international VC community, including those that have been on Forbes 30 under 30, Japan’s 50 Richest Net Worth List, founders of billion-dollar projects, and many more.

If you’re interested in early investment in new startups within the world of blockchain, you couldn’t find a better project than Hectagon.

Serenity Shield – Strongbox

Although  the cryptocurrency market has seen unmatched growth over the past decade, one area that is always being called into question is security. Cybersecurity in this field has to be perfect, considering that hacks have led to millions of dollars being stolen out of user wallets or off major DeFi platforms.

Serenity Shield, founded in 2021, identified this glaring problem within the world of cryptocurrency and aims to provide a complete security solution for crypto. They offer fully decentralized and completely encrypted lockboxes that allow users to retain complete control over the security of their digital assets. What’s more, Serenity Shield also includes the possibility to add heirs to an account, allowing for digital assets to be passed down in the case of death.

One of the leading features of Serenity Shield is its aforementioned StrongBox. When putting digital assets into this StrongBox, the wallet is encrypted with three unique NFT keys. Each one of these keys is distributed to different locations, ensuring complete safety. One of the keys is passed to the account holder, one is sent to the designated heir of the account, and the final one is bound within a Serenity Shield smart contract.

The authentication process is completely handled by Serenity Wallet, which offers a further layer of security like biometric systems and more to ensure complete security. From this, digital assets are completely secured, with the StrongBox system even ensuring that heirs are passed the information to the accounts even in the event of the primary user’s death. This almost generational approach to digital assets demonstrates the longevity of the project and the dedication Serenity Shield has to ensuring the continual distribution of digital assets.

Ambire – Web3 Wallet

Currently, the leading method that users employ to store their cryptocurrency is through a crypto wallet, which is typically a web-based browser extension. While this may work for some people, there is an inherent security risk to using browser extensions for private financial data, with the range of web extension hacks over the past few years  demonstrating how vulnerable they are.

Yet, crypto wallets are essential for holding and trading cryptocurrency, with their connection to major decentralized exchanges being how people get involved with major functions of cryptocurrency like staking or general exchange trading. To solve this issue, Ambire created a web application wallet, which provides a much more secure wallet for users.

Instead of downloading a web extension, Ambire’s platform is completely system-based, with users downloading the application onto their computer.

Ambire hit the ground running and hasn’t slowed down since, with the release of their Whitepaper triggering nearly 45,000 people to create wallets with their system. Since then, they’ve accumulated over $44 million TVL and have won several awards and partnerships for their innovative approach to crypto wallet security.

With further in-app features like mass transactions or the ability to create multiple signers for accessing the account, users will have complete control of their crypto wallets.

Minima – Complete Node Decentralization

Blockchain was founded on the principle of users having absolutely all of the power, with decentralization being the main goal of this entire system. No matter what field you look at, from gaming to finance, blockchain provides users with the ability to get involved in projects, moving away from the traditional Web2 structures where a few companies have all of the market control.

While this has certainly worked to an extent, with DAOs and some of the entries on this list demonstrating the core principles of blockchain well, it is not completely the case. This is due to the fact that the decentralized nodes that many companies use are actually owned by a select few companies. With this considered, the decentralized network is not really decentralized, as it must rely on centralized nodes.

Minima aims to radically revolutionize the decentralized nature of blockchain by providing completely decentralized nodes. It does this by making every single mobile phone that has the Minima application downloaded into a node. Instead of buying nodes or providing them around the globe, it actively uses its own community to provide nodes.

Anyone can download the application and then get involved with Minima, turning their mobile device into a decentralized node that then allows for completely decentralized building. From cryptocurrencies to applications built on this network, it completes the promise that blockchain set out with.

Every member that provides their mobile phone as a node earns rewards, with the incentive of cryptocurrency ensuring that the community continually pushes to provide nodes across the globe for this platform. What’s more, as the nodes come directly from cell phones, the mobile nature of this system consumes much less energy than traditional node networks.

With decentralization at its core, Minima actively revolutionizes the node industry and provides a system that completes blockchain’s very first promise.

Fashion League – MetaVerse Fashion

The global fashion industry is one of the most expansive fields in the world, currently being worth over 3 trillion dollars . Considered the 4th biggest sector in the world, it was only a matter of time before this groundbreaking industry was furthered by blockchain technologies.

Fashion League sets out to combine the innovative technologies of Web 3 with the principles of fashion, providing users the ability to create fashion items in the Metaverse. Their platform works as a game for individual users, where they can create fashion and distribute their creations through an online store. Additionally, it acts as a location in the Metaverse where brands can go to display their products.

This virtual method of marketing provides brands with user insights, real-time analytics, as well as an opportunity to hear directly from their own consumers. The combination of fashion and blockchain technologies is where Fashion League thrives, with their Web3 platform actively innovating these industries.

Those playing Fashion league can earn cryptocurrency from their Metaverse creations, selling, trading, or even renting out their fashion as exclusive NFTs. Alongside individual play modes, players can participate in community-wide events, challenges, and competitions where they can put their digital art on the international stage.

By using NFTs, Fashion League integrates core aspects of blockchain technology into their Metaverse game, with this medium being the perfect intersection of fashion and crypto.

Naoris Protocol – Cybersecurity

Security in blockchain is an ever-growing field; as more people find cryptocurrency and begin to invest, the need for effective cybersecurity measures equally increases. One of the leading projects that are actively revolutionizing security within the blockchain space is Naoris Protocol. Their main goal is to create a decentralized industry-wide standardization for security, using devices to self-validate each other within a trusted ecosystem.

The main problem with many current crypto projects is that they have single points of failure, which can then be exploited by hackers and lead to the downfall of entire systems. Naoris Protocol aims to fix this issue by creating a new consensus mechanism, decentralized Proof of Security (dPoSec), that relies on devices validating each other. All of the different devices are active in real-time, allowing for blockchain systems to access a distributed network that does not have any single points of fault.

Naoris Protocol reduces the cybersecurity risk of Web3 systems, protecting digital devices from the growing cyber threat. With a mixture of blockchain technology and Swarm AI, Naoris Protocol converts traditional devices into decentralized nodes, making networks increasingly stronger. What’s more, this system is completely scalable, with the strength of the protocol itself increasing as more people find the system.

The power of this protocol is so effective that it could also soon be retroactively connected to Web2 systems, providing everything from individuals and companies to entire governments a more effective way of protecting their data. Their $CYBER token can also be staked by users, with individuals that contribute to this network being able to then gain rewards over time for creating this trusted and secure environment.

Naoris Protocol is a win-win for consumers and companies, using blockchain technology to radically decrease the threat of cyberattacks.

Final Thoughts

Blockchain is an exciting industry that has now found its way into practically every industry there is, with its advanced applications providing new features and innovating established ones. From fashion and security to gaming and investing, blockchain provides a springboard for new ideas, which these 10 examples demonstrate perfectly.

On this list, we’ve explored 10 of the most revolutionary crypto projects to date, with each one providing a solution or radically improving an industry that it focuses on. With the power and potential applications of blockchain only growing with time, we’re sure that we’ll see these projects continue to revolutionize their respective fields.

Blockchain is currently the word on everyone’s lips, and we can’t wait to see just how these projects continue to use this technology in the future.