According to a survey conducted by Binance Research and Binance VIP & Institutional team, institutional clients of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by market value, Binance, are optimistic on the outlook of crypto for the next year and beyond. The survey, which was conducted between March and May 2023, revealed that 63.5% of respondents said they are positive on the outlook of crypto for the next year and 88% said they are optimistic for the next decade. Despite negative market events in the past year, 47% of institutional investors kept their crypto allocations and more than a third increased their allocation.
Infrastructure was the most important area of interest for investing, with 54% of investors seeing it as the most important, closely followed by layer 1 and layer 2 projects with 48% and 44%, respectively. Web3 infrastructure has been an investor darling from the beginning of this year, with blockchain infrastructure provider LayerZero Labs raising $120 million in a Series B funding round at a valuation of $3 billion. On the flip side, NFTs, metaverse, and gaming sectors were least important for the institutional investors.
Apple’s most recent mixed reality headset brought some short-lived optimism back into the metaverse industry, however, the hype has dwindled due to a continued bear market that saw lower NFT trading volume and a stagnant growth for metaverse.