NYDIG Research Director: The "investable scope" of cryptocurrencies is narrowing, and the prospects for non-financial applications are concerning

Deep Tide TechFlow News, February 23 — According to Cointelegraph, Greg Cipolaro, Head of Research at NYDIG, released a research report last Friday stating that as the crypto industry matures, applications capable of attracting investors are decreasing. The “investable scope” is gradually narrowing to niche areas that extend traditional financial products onto blockchain infrastructure, specifically including Bitcoin, tokenized assets, stablecoins, some DeFi infrastructure, and a few general-purpose blockchains like Ethereum.

Cipolaro pointed out that blockchain applications once highly sought after, such as gaming, social networks, and the metaverse, are cooling off. The reason is that centralized systems have “perpetual advantages” in speed, cost, and operational efficiency for the vast majority of enterprise and consumer applications. He believes that the core attributes of blockchain—trustlessness, permissionlessness, and censorship resistance—are inherently more suitable for monetary and quasi-monetary financial applications rather than broad real-world scenarios.

He also stated that the current market is reflecting this trend, with Bitcoin’s market share continuing to rise, while altcoins attract limited funds due to “a lack of sustained new narratives.” While the narrowing investable scope helps clarify long-term winners, it may also restrict speculative capital flowing into alternative assets, potentially causing the overall size of the crypto market to fall far below early expectations.