The technology, which is not at all restricted to finance, is also inspiring a new era of digital solutions with clever and practical applications, especially in developing countries desperate for innovation. 

From DeFi to NFTs, these solutions are providing opportunities and breaking down barriers in regions craving financial freedom and seeking technical solutions to thorny problems. So sit tight and relax as we explore the top 5 blockchain projects making an impact in people’s lives all over the world.

TLDR 

• As of 2022, 10 of the top 20 countries leading blockchain adoption were developing economies.
• Companies like Binance, agritech platform Hara, DeFi aggregator InstaDapp, Ethereum scaling solution Polygon and many others utilize blockchain technology to facilitate everything from financial inclusion to digital solutions to the relief of supply chain inefficiencies.

Disclaimer: Not financial nor investment advice. Any capital-related decisions you make are your full responsibility and yours only.

Binance

Our list would be incomplete without the OG cryptocurrency exchange with a market valuation of $16 Billion. Founded by Chinese-Canadian Changpeng Zhao aka “CZ”, Binance has made it clear that its objective is to further global blockchain access by expanding outreach into developing economies, especially in Africa and Asia. 

In 2022 alone, Binance organized more than 50 community-based events across Africa. A recent collaboration with Utiva (a training camp for tech skills) facilitated 1,000 scholarships and blockchain training to 50,000 young adults across the continent on the utility and application of the technology. 

Binance supports over 40 fiat payment channels including Naira, Yen and Peso, with an easy-to-use Lite platform. This is a convenient piece of tech for onboarding new users in developing markets, requiring nothing more than an internet connection and identification to access blockchain features. 

$BNB Tokenomics

Currently priced at $305, $BNB is the native token of Binance Smart Chain which can be staked to earn interest on the network's proof of stake validation system. 

$BNB also stimulates demand with its numerous use cases such as staking, payments and collateral; such activities generate a daily volume of $700 million on the Binance Smart Chain. The $BNB token is also the exclusive token for investments on Binance Launchpad, an incubator for blockchain projects.

$BNB has a current market cap of $51 billion and a limited supply of 200 million tokens with no inflationary mechanisms to worry about. Overall the $BNB token is a valuable investment with practical use on the world’s leading exchange. 

Despite the turbulent markets the token has maintained a bullish trend since its ICO in 2017 and is expected to continue to do so, even in light of the recent Paxos-USD dilemma. We predict the token will breach the $400 mark before the end of february and $600 by June, assuming there are no unfortunate crypto events to dissuade investors.

Bitso

Operating out of Mexico, the cryptocurrency exchange Bitso provides 5 million users access to the global cryptocurrency market. 

As the first exchange to offer cryptocurrency trading against the native Peso, the Mexican unicorn is a leader in the Latin American crypto market. It offers solutions to a largely unbanked population and encourages the adoption of cryptocurrency in the region. 

In 2022, the exchange handled $1 billion in crypto remittances. Although that’s a high sum, it’s a mere fraction of the whole since Mexico was the second largest recipient of remittances in the world at ($58 billion), second only to India. 

Although this blockchain does not have a native token, Bitso is currently the leading exchange in the region, a position it could retain as it expands services to other regions in the coming years. 

Hara

Another instance of blockchain technology utilized for greater good is Hara. Launched in 2015, the blockchain-based exchange is devoted to accelerating agricultural development in Indonesia. It does so by providing verifiable agricultural data to institutional actors like banks to make informed decisions on loans, insurance or even grants. 

Given the traditional lack of such data, farmers in the country ordinarily have no knowledge of modern techniques and find it difficult to access financial instruments. Hara’s solution is to incentivise reliable data collection by independent players and disseminate this data to institutions on demand. 

$HART Tokenomics

Built on its native blockchain, the $HART token is worth $0.00289 and has a total market cap of $3.5 million. 

$HART is used not only to access the network, facilitate frictionless payment and reward network participants (farmers, token holders and data analytics companies receive tokens for providing or validating data on the network) but to improve farming data visibility within Indonesia's agriculture sector of over 38 million farmers. 

On the charts, however, the token has been in a massive choppy trend with no clear buy signal. So while this project may be doing exciting things for Indonesian farmers, it is not a compelling investment right now.

InstaDapp Labs

Based in India, InstaDapp Labs provides easy access to some of the most profitable DeFi yield-earning opportunities for users and developers alike. Two words to best describe the product they offer is ‘DeFi optimization’, InstaDapp serves as a management system to monitor all protocols and provide users with an optimal view of the numerous opportunities within the DeFi ecosystem. 

The protocol provides a series of tools that go beyond the capabilities of a normal wallet, enabling investors to boost return and create more advanced positions in various DeFi protocols using InstaDapp as a middleman. 

One of its more interesting features is interoperation across chains, which enables users to move open positions to other networks with zero cost, a process that's ordinarily more expensive. 

Another feature of the InstaDapp protocol is collateral-less flash-loans with no limit on loan amount. Flash-loans have become a very useful tool to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities (buying low on exchange 1 and selling higher on exchange 2) as they appear in the market. The protocol also currently serves as one of the best sources of ETH yield on mainnet, offering up to 10% APR to users depositing ETH.

Launched in 2018 during the ETHIndia hackathon, InstaDapp has come a long way, attracting over $10 million in funding from big name investors like Standard Crypto, Yearn Finance and Naval Ravikant. 

$INST tokenomics

The native $INST is a governance token with a current market cap of $16 million. It is used mainly to align incentives between users and developers.

$INST does not invoke demand as it only has utility for its users, who are mostly developers. 

$INST has been considerably choppy in price, with an uptrend only noticeable on the 90-day chart. Although uncertain, the token is expected to continue its slow climb to $1.41 by the end of the year, moving upward with the rest of the market. While this is a good project with practical utility, its token does not exhibit enough bullish signs to invest long term. 

Polygon

Formerly known as Matic Network, the Indian-based company is a Layer 2 scaling solution that provides a low barrier to entry into the Ethereum blockchain. 

Polygon earned popularity especially for its low transaction fees and fast execution times. Since its inception in 2017, the Polygon network has grown remarkably, dominating the cryptocurrency space with its $9.7 billion market cap and 340,000 daily active users. 

Polygon has been very instrumental in the promotion of blockchain adoption in emerging economies in Africa and Asia. It’s provided access to NFTs, web3, DeFi, metaverse environments and more at very reasonable costs. This has attracted scores of developers, businesses and investors to explore the potential of decentralized applications (dApps) and services.

$MATIC Tokenomics

The native token $MATIC, priced at $1.29, shows significant promise considering its myriad of applications; primarily as transaction fees and to gain staking rewards. Its total supply of 10 billion tokens have all been distributed, with 8 billion currently in circulation. 

On the charts the token has shown bullish signs since the start of the year, but it comes as no surprise considering Polygon is the leading Layer 2 scaling solution with numerous applications from NFTs to DeFi. The asset recently breached the $1.4 mark (a resistance set since May of 2022), and is primed to reach $1.6 before the month ends. While 50x may be overly optimistic, we do expect the $MATIC token to trend higher as adoption continues to grow in the coming months. 

Cryptonary’s Take

As investments, only the $BNB and $MATIC tokens show significant enough promise for the months ahead, with both tokens projected to 2X by the end of the year. 

Zooming out from individual assets, the growing rate of cryptocurrency adoption in developing economies is a positive sign of a more inclusive financial future and increased financial literacy. 

Compared to centralized finance, DeFi has a long way to go. What’s exciting, however, is the potential to drive economic growth in developing economies and bridge the global wealth gap with increased financial opportunities for everyone.

Action Points

As new investors explore the potential of cryptocurrency, it is crucial to take precautions in safeguarding investments and minimizing risk. Here are some guidelines for making informed and profitable crypto investments;

1. Read Cryptonary’s reports. Our analysts are committed to providing the best opportunities in any market cycle for our readers, and we have consistently proven ourselves with gains in the field.
2. Do your own research. Every investor is ultimately responsible for their own decisions, and extensive research into every project they’re interested in is a must.
3. The $BNB and $MATIC tokens have good long term value; we advise a dollar-cost-averaging strategy to invest in them.
4. The InstaDapp protocol provides access to lucrative yield opportunities across various DeFi platforms, and a high APR compared to other DeFi actors like Aave. 
5. Apart from cryptocurrency trading, Binance provides numerous courses on trading, staking and general blockchain functionality via its Binance Academy. 
6. Polygon University, similarly provides various educational programmes, specifically curated to onboard developers and encourage projects to be built on its native chain.