Will 2019 be just as nail-biting and ulcer-inducing as the previous year?

Where is the industry going? Which sectors will feel the technology’s impact the most? Is the ICO really dead?

The Iconist asked the ICON Foundation’s Min Kim, ICON Global Business Head Henry Lee and Deblock CEO Hyun Oh to look into their crystal balls and tell us what they see for the blockchain space in 2019. And what they saw was a year in which the industry grows more mature, a year that may finally separate the wannabes from the serious players.

A killer app? Finally?

Kim thinks 2019 will be when we get the game-changing service the blockchain space so desperate needs. He says, “One killer use case will finally come through.”

Oh is expecting some real-world adoption of blockchain this year, too. “How many users have crypto wallets on their smartphones?”, he asks. “There is no need to have a wallet on their phones, that is why people don’t have them.” But things started changing in Korea last year, he says, when most local ICO projects were reverse ICOs, i.e., projects that already had users.

With even corporate giants like LINE and SK building their own blockchain projects, Oh expects Korea to continue its traditional role as the world’s testbed for emerging technologies. “I expect the Korean market can be a testbed for the crypto industry,” he says. “By the end of the year, every smartphone in Korea will have a crypto wallet.”

“In the early 3G era, Korea was a testbed for mobile services because of high-speed HSDPA and high smartphone penetration,” he adds. “So I am expecting the crypto user infrastructure will be set up by real adoption next year.”

Lee looked at 2019 from a more business-focused perspective. He predicted a return of interest in blockchain in Japan. He also thinks the industry will become more institutional and financialized than ever before. He adds, “We’ll start seeing M&As in volume.”

Gaming and finance

The three looked at which industries would be most impacted by blockchain in the coming year. Lee pointed to three sectors: digitized assets such as loyalty points and local currency, digital identity and financial items such as custody and wallets.

Kim, on the other hand, pointed to an old favorite of new technologies – gaming. “Games, including gambling, are always a good bet,” said Kim. “I also see a positive impact from the government.”