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With the Gartner Hype Cycle perfectly describing the ups and downs the dot-com boom saw in the early 2000s, many have wondered whether applying the methodology to the crypto industry would provide more clarity as to where the market is heading.

For blockchain, the second phase started in 2014 with Ethereum and reached its peak in 2017 with the market mania surrounding ICOs.

However, the wild west that was the ICO boom met its end in 2017, when blockchain entered the third phase of the Hype Cycle like clockwork.

According to Gartner, this is where producers of the technology, or in this case token issuers, get shaken out of the market.

According to Gartner, this is where second and third-generation products begin to appear on the market and less risk-averse enterprises begin funding projects and implementing the technology.

And while many criticized MicroStrategy and Tesla for their “reckless” investments, the corporate jump to cryptocurrencies shows that more enterprises began to realize and better understand the benefits of cryptocurrencies—exactly as described in the Gartner Hype Cycle.

The plateau of productivity—the fifth and final phase of the Hype Cycle, where mainstream adoption truly begins to take off.

Gartner describes this phase as the period where the criteria for accessing a project’s viability becomes more clearly defined and a technology’s market applicability begins to pay off by becoming globally relevant.

And while it can be argued whether this could be applied to the crypto industry, some of the industry’s most influential voices believe that this is exactly where the crypto market currently is.