As the cryptocurrency landscape evolves, certain projects stand out for their innovative approach and potential for substantial growth.

Here are some cryptocurrencies to keep an eye on for 2024:

Immutable X (IMX)  

Immutable X has rapidly gained prominence in the blockchain gaming sector, an area that Baktyary regards as “the most funded sector in the crypto space in both 2022 and 2023.” This significant funding underscores the sector’s vast potential and investor interest. Immutable X’s strategic partnership with Polygon, a former competitor, has been a game-changer. Together, they now dominate about 80% of the blockchain gaming market. 

“Previously competitors, Polygon and Immutable X now hold a dominant position with most crypto games being developed within their combined ecosystem,” Baktyary notes.

This partnership has transformed Immutable X into a central hub for blockchain gaming, not just focusing on a single game but facilitating the development of over 200 games. 

“They’re not just building one game; they’re becoming the hub for games built on the blockchain.” This broad approach increases the likelihood of significant success within the gaming sector,” Baktyary says.

Additionally, Immutable X has forged partnerships with major industry players like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Ubisoft, and has games available on the Epic Games Store. These collaborations signify the project’s strong business development and potential for widespread adoption.

Another key feature of Immutable X is its focus on zk-rollup technology, which enhances scalability, security, and user experience. This positions Immutable X at the forefront of technological innovation in the crypto space. “They are one of the trailblazers in zk tech,” Baktyary adds, “which opens doors for much more than the market currently sees.”

Polygon (MATIC/POL)

Polygon, partnering with Immutable X in gaming, stands out for its broader contributions to blockchain technology. Its widespread adoption of the Chain Development Kit (CDK), more colloquially referred to as the Polygon stack, demonstrates the robustness and versatility of its technology. 

“Large Chain Development Kit adoption marks Polygon’s significant presence in the blockchain infrastructure,” Baktyary says.

Polygon’s introduction of Polygon 2.0 adds a multi-layered structure to its protocol, with a notable layer being the Staking Layer. This layer uses Polygon’s native token and enables validators to earn rewards, including transaction fees, from the chains they validate. 

“Polygon (Staking Layer) offers validators potential for additional revenue streams,” Baktyary says.

Moreover, Polygon is a leader in zero-knowledge technology, with its zkEVM already operational. This technology enhances privacy and scalability in blockchain transactions, making Polygon a forerunner in this area.

Polygon is also making strides in scalability by transitioning its PoS chain to become a Validium, including experiments in parallelising execution. This move further enhances network efficiency. 

“Polygon’s transition to becoming a Validium shows its commitment to advancing blockchain modularity and Ethereum alignment,” Baktyary says. Its advancements in technology and strategic direction highlight Polygon’s role as a pioneer in the blockchain ecosystem.

Optimism (OP)

Optimism (OP) stands out as a significant player in the blockchain space, with several key achievements underlining its importance in the evolving cryptocurrency landscape.

One of Optimism’s key accomplishments is its success in stack adoption, where it ranks second only to Polygon. In the world of blockchain, a “stack” refers to the layered structure of technology solutions and protocols that build upon each other to create a comprehensive system. In this context, the Optimism stack refers to its core codebase that is used to help bootstrap other layer-2 blockchains within the Optimism ecosystem. 

Baktyary says: “Optimism has the second-largest public stack adoption amongst layer-2 stacks, following Polygon, including strong clients such as Coinbase, who are committed to maintaining the integrity of the stack.” 

This high level of adoption signals trust in Optimism’s technology and its potential for broad application and integration across different blockchain platforms.

Another significant stride for Optimism is its partnership with Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges. This collaboration, with Coinbase using Optimism’s stack, is a testament to the project’s safety and technological robustness, Baktyary notes, and “is huge from a safety perspective”.  This relationship bolsters Optimism’s credibility and extends its reach to a wider audience, fostering further adoption.

In terms of governance and community engagement, Optimism has made notable progress and received applause from the crypto community. The success of Optimism’s governance model has even been highlighted in a Stanford article, indicating a mature and thoughtful approach to involving the community in decision-making processes.

Baktyary adds that the Optimism team appears to be strongly aligned with the Ethereum ecosystem, and this demonstrates its adherence to core blockchain values, which resonates with a significant portion of the market.

Like Polygon and Immutable X, Optimism is also at the forefront of technological innovation with its advancements in zero-knowledge (zk) technology. 

“Optimism’s Bedrock upgrade enables support for multiple execution layer clients and an abstraction of the proof system, allowing a rollup on the OP stack to use either a fault proof or validity proof system,” Baktyary says.

“This upgrade is Optimism’s first step to adoption of zk tech.”

EigenLayer

Another project attracting attention for its pioneering technology is EigenLayer.

The project is heightened by the prospect of a reward system for users, a move that Baktyary suggests is aimed at appreciating early adopters.

 “EigenLayer doesn’t yet have a token, but its point system and introduction of projects such as EigenDA have led the market to assume that there may be an airdrop in the future,” he says.

The cornerstone of EigenLayer’s innovation is its breakthrough Actively Validated Services (AVS) technology. 

This technology benefits a variety of applications, from data availability layers to oracle networks, by allowing them to benefit from external validator sets, thereby reducing the cost of securing and verifying their networks. 

“AVS is a huge new primitive that enables exporting a blockchain’s validator security to a brand new set of software and use cases,” Baktyary says.

EigenLayer’s ability to export validator security can also contribute to improving ecosystem interoperability. Networks and ecosystems that would have been previously siloed would need to bootstrap their own validator set, usually commit high token incentives to validators, and all the while run the risk of a somewhat centralised validator set. Now networks at their early stages could just pull their validator security from another network that already has those early-stage blockchain issues resolved.

Addressing critical issues within the Ethereum ecosystem, particularly around staking providers, EigenLayer proposes a solution to bring balance and enhanced security. 

“EigenLayer can help incentivise a limit system for staking providers with a majority share of validators such as Lido; a topic that has been a large topic of debate within the Ethereum ecosystem,”  Baktyary says.

Furthermore, EigenLayer’s advancements could promote scaling solutions like Validiums and potentially extend the use of Ethereum validators to secure other blockchains, including Solana and Cosmos. This development represents a leap in blockchain scalability and security, which Baktyary notes as a crucial step for the broader application of Ethereum’s technology.

“EigenLayer can help enable Validiums with projects such as EigenDA, and can theoretically have blockhains like Ethereum secure alternate layer 1 blockchains, such as Solana.” he says.