DEXs Become Popular; Payment Channels Help Resolve Scalability Issues
Though the adoption of decentralized exchanges has not been high so far, I feel theyll become fairly mainstream in 2018.
With SEC regulations around the corner, this likely has centralized exchanges panicking.
To find token liquidity elsewhere, people will have to turn to decentralized exchanges (DEXs). I expect projects like EtherDelta, which has been around for a while, to become popular in 2018 as people gradually turn away from Coinbase, Bittrex, etc.
Thats not to say that centralized exchanges will immediately be forgotten; they are still worlds more convenient than any functioning or soon-to-be-launched DEX is. But they will probably lose a sizable amount of their market share in 2018.