Understanding Crypto Market Sectors

There's a lot of talk of crypto winter turning to spring. I'm not sure when that will happen, but it doesn't hurt to prepare. This is a non-inclusive list of crypto market segments that might help people do their own research, rather than just following the Youtube shillers or what some dude at the bar said the other night.

Hope it helps. Improvements welcome.

I've also included several CoinMarketCap watchlists I created at the bottom that include projects in many of these sectors.

Crypto by Sector

1. CORE TECHNOLOGY

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• Blockchains: the processing networks for transactions. There are over 40 of them and the list keeps growing. They include the likes of ETH, SOL, ADA, AVAX, DOT among the largest by marketcap.
• Scaling Solutions: these make Ethereum run faster/cheaper and also include chains of chains and other efficiency innovations. Some of the largest include Polygon (MATIC) and Cosmos (ATOM).
• Oracles/Data: these enable outside data to be brought in and used for various decentralized apps (like crypto prices and weather data) The largest include ChainLink (LINK) and The Graph (GRT) but several others are climbing the ranks.

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2. SPECIALTY SECTORS (these go beyond the processing core and provide specific services)

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• Coins/Stablecoins/Memecoins: They are used as a method of exchange and store of value (e.g. BTC, XRP) as well as those pegged in some way to stay at a 1:1 ratio (to the US dollar, Euro, Japanese Yen or algorithmically determined like Luna's UST.) These stable coins are often used to hold assets before moving into another token or coin. They can also be staked to earn interest. They include USDT, USDC, BUSD, and UST among others. There are also memecoins that maybe are a category all to themselves. They're basically an idea, minted into a crypto, and hyped. Some are becoming an exchange of value (AMC theaters accepting DOGE and SHIB for example.) Others are like lottery tickets that may pay off or become worthless.
• Exchange tokens - issued by centralized exchanges and used to pay fees (usually at a discount). Big names include Binance (BNB), FTX, Crypto-dot-com (CRO), Kucoin, Huobi, and Okex.
• Defi - these are decentralized exchanges (DEX's) and have tokens of their own used for payments and swapping from one token into another. They include Uniswap, PanacakeSwap, 1Inch, and SushiSwap (all in the top 100) that are Ethereum blockchain based, but there is an explosion of other DEX's running on different blockchains. Defi also includes automated market makers, staking (to earn interest) and swap services.
• Social, metaverse, gaming, and NFTs: These are grouped together because they so often overlap among different platforms (e.g. a metaverse can include NFT marketplaces and gaming), but their potential can also be seen separately as some are purely gaming/NFT for example.
• Supply chain/logistics: These are trying to bring end-to-end monitoring of goods in transit including luxury goods, pharmaceuticals, etc. The largest by marketcap is VeChain (VET) with a handful of other smaller rivals including OriginTrail (TRAC).
• Storage: Like Box, iCloud, and other cloud storage services, but on the blockchain. Filecoin (FIL), Arweave(AR), Siacoin(SC), and Storj (STORJ) lead the pack at the moment.
• Telecom: offering low cost cellular access, commercial low-band wireless, and decentralized apps for smartphones.
• Energy/environment: a wide range of use cases from carbon credits to energy trading.

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3. WATCHLISTS: Here are some watchlists I created on CoinMarketCap to help with research.

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• Blockchain Platforms: https://coinmarketcap.com/watchlist/605cc4969068e024455c99b1
• Gaming/Social: https://coinmarketcap.com/watchlist/605624c1b1ce8411db93f9df
• Exchanges: https://coinmarketcap.com/watchlist/6127d096769ac51f3ba5e1e2
• Telecom: https://coinmarketcap.com/watchlist/615a55f07c06544632046442
• Energy/Environment: https://coinmarketcap.com/watchlist/6050d741576b7f36865efa2e
• Supplychain: https://coinmarketcap.com/watchlist/61718eb14bd895684841ff59
• Storage: https://coinmarketcap.com/watchlist/605641d09759cc257a48c145
• Oracles: https://coinmarketcap.com/watchlist/61889eb073dd5b48caad21a3