Despite a raucous 2022 for cryptocurrencies, web3 technology is still as robust as ever and blockchains are not going anywhere. The infrastructure that supports cryptocurrencies is separate and apart from the shenanigans of bad actors who swindle investors or mismanage projects. This infrastructure will prove its worth in 2023 in the form of Dapps that attract web2 consumers.

The GameFi metamorphosis

With collapsed exchanges, a sinking NFT market, and the crypto winter, GameFi was just one more nail in the coffin that was 2022. Much of the problem of GameFi was due to the play-to-earn (P2E) model which galled web2 and web3 gamers alike for its cash-grab business model.

Earning money isn’t the incentive gamers have for playing and by changing the incentive, web3 game developers – who do want to earn money – have unwittingly repelled their market which doesn’t share the same impetus.

Conversely, Dapps can bring back the value of blockchains by offering gameplay interoperability between worlds and games, in-game DAOs, and even walled gardens to create an atmosphere that gamers are looking for. 

By putting these types of enhancements at the center of the game, rather than tokenomics, Dapps are one of the most well-positioned assets web3 has to restore its reputation after the decay of 2022.

From infrastructure to application

With so many cryptocurrencies, exchanges, and other associated ventures going bankrupt in 2022, developers have decided to turn their attention away from those infrastructure projects to web3 application development. 

This is where Dapps may have some inroads into the web2-dominated gaming industry. Rather than putting profit at the center of the gaming experience and strategy, developers are looking at building applications around games that incorporate web3 technologies. 

These can be in the form of making game skins as NFTs, third-party tokenized avatars that are compatible with various games or using web3 gamification as a means to educate users in various industries. This can put the gaming experience at the forefront of web3 gamification while not operating as a DeFi racket.

Leveraging existing technologies

Dapps are in an excellent position to leverage existing technologies like fintech apps, because they can introduce tokenization – a value-add that is not possible with web2 applications. This back door approach is one of the best marketing strategies that Dapps have going for them in 2023. 

By dovetailing into the market and partnering with traditional apps, Dapps are able to get their value proven through use cases in front of wide audiences already built by a traditional app. 

With blockchains like Avalanche and Polygon partnering with huge brand names like Amazon and Nike, respectively, Dapps are primed for web2 exposure and geared toward mass adoption by an erstwhile skeptical market.

2023 and beyond

One unsung advantage that Dapps have is their security and scalability are more manageable than traditional apps given the blockchain’s permanence, transparency, and node network which can easily update data simultaneously. Traditional data silos or data lakes are not able to offer nearly the same types of features by any serious comparison.

All in all, Dapps are set to take the lead in the evolution of web3 where cryptocurrencies, NFTs, the Zuckerberg-style metaverse, and web3 gaming have failed. Dapps have a golden opportunity in 2023 to prove to a host of users and investors, exhausted with the events of 2022, that web3 is able to bring valuable solutions to the market in ways no other technology can.