jakiro
Source: OKX Ventures
With the completion of Bitcoin halving, for BTC, which is deeply integrated with US stocks, macroeconomics, financial data and central bank policies have become important factors affecting Bitcoin’s trend. High interest rate environment and low interest rate cut expectations will continue to affect market trends.
At present, the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem is still in its early stages, but infrastructure construction is currently developing rapidly. The first layer of Bitcoin innovation represented by Arch, client verification represented by Nervos RGB++, and the Layer2 solution represented by Bitlayer and BounceBitThe infrastructure project has been initially taken, and industry insiders generally believe that applications within the Bitcoin ecosystem will usher in an explosion in the future. The market is expected to see DeFi Summer, NFT Summer and GameFi Summer belonging to the Bitcoin ecosystem.
In addition, the development of the crypto market infrastructure field is showing a trend of diversification.Parallel EVM As a narrative hotspot, top projects such as Monad and Aptos have led dozens of public chains to follow up parallel EVM narratives.Modular narrative continues to develop, with Movement, Avail and Staketone also completing this round of fundraising in April.In addition, 1 million new tokens were created across the network throughout April, 640,000 were created on Solana and 320,000 were created on Base, and more infrastructures ushered in development.
In terms of the continuous growth of the application ecosystem, game ecological projects continue to explode, and high-quality games represented by Matr1x and full-chain games represented by Cellula are about to explode.Although the gaming sector’s market value fell by 30% in April.However, the number of active users (wallets) reached 3 million, a record high, an increase of 16.9% from March, indicating to a certain extent the increase in user participation and willingness to participate.
OKX Ventures continued to focus on the industry in April, including the development of Bitcoin ecosystem, the development of Ethereum ecological entrepreneurship projects, and the potential progress of Ethereum ETFs in Hong Kong and the United States, and invested in multiple projects.
Bitcoin Ecology
Arch Protocol
According to Arch Protocol white paper:
• Project Overview
￮ Arch is a Bitcoin native application platform designed to launch decentralized finance (DeFi) on the world’s most valuable blockchain without relying on bridging technology.Arch utilizes the direct operation of the Bitcoin blockchain to expand the programmability of Bitcoin and provides a secure, decentralized execution layer that enables developers to develop complex applications on Bitcoin.
￮ Arch emphasizes that Bitcoin is not sacrificing its core value as a non-sovereign currency, while expanding its functions and application scope as much as possible, enhancing Bitcoin’s programmability and expanding its application scope, marking a new stage of Bitcoin’s further development.
• Project Highlights
￮ Bitcoin native integration, supports DeFi and NFTs: Arch operates directly on the first layer of Bitcoin (Layer 1), avoiding the complexity and efficiency problems in traditional layer 2 solutions, and directly leveraging the security of Bitcoin itselfand liquidity.Developers can create decentralized lending markets, exchanges, and high-end collectibles and NFTs that can be stored entirely on the Bitcoin chain, which brings added value and functionality to the Bitcoin ecosystem.
￮ Smart Contract Features: Through the Zero Knowledge Virtual Machine (ZKVM), Arch is able to execute smart contracts, adding unprecedented flexibility and diversity to Bitcoin.This smart contract capability supports from simple asset exchanges to complex financial products.
￮ Decentralized Verification Network: The core of Arch is its decentralized Verification Node Network, which verifies Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZK Proofs) to ensure the correct execution of transactions and applications.This network structure enhances the security and censorship resistance of the platform and avoids centralized risks.
￮ Full on-chain operation: All transactions and state changes executed through the Arch platform are finally confirmed and recorded on the Bitcoin blockchain, maintaining the transparency and immutability of the Bitcoin blockchain.
Bitlayer
According to the Bitlayer white paper:
• Project Overview
￮ Bitlayer is a Bitcoin layer 2 network based on BitVM technology, aiming to introduce scalability to the Bitcoin ecosystem.Bitlayer provides security equivalent to Bitcoin’s first layer and realizes Turing completeness, allowing developers to perform arbitrary calculations on Bitcoin.
￮ Bitlayer aims to transform Bitcoin from a pure store of value into a more active and productive asset, while providing a fast transaction experience and low-cost transaction fees.
• Project Highlights
￮ Security: Bitlayer uses a fraud proof protocol based on BitVM to verify state transitions, ensuring comparable security to the base layer of Bitcoin.Using DLC/BitVM technology, it provides a more secure bridging model for cross-chain transfer of assets than MPC-TSS or multiple signatures.
￮ Scalability: Bitlayer supports flexible scaling solutions and is committed to expanding Bitcoin’s Internet and cryptocurrency user base.Through modular design, Bitlayer can achieve unlimited scalability while ensuring fast transaction confirmation and low transaction costs.
￮ Developer and User-friendly: Bitlayer will initially be EVM-compatible, allowing existing Ethereum ecosystem applications and developers to migrate to Bitlayer at low cost without in-depth modifications.In the future, more virtual machines, such as CairoVM, SolVM and MoveVM, will be supported to provide users with a richer selection of on-chain applications.
BounceBit
According to the BounceBit white paper:
• Project Overview
￮ BounceBit is a Restaking infrastructure built on BTC, protected by a regulated hosting of Mainnet Digital and Ceffu.
￮ BounceBit chain is a PoS one-layer chain based on Bitcoin Restaking. Through validators, it pledges the native tokens of BTC and BounceBit. It adopts a dual token system to achieve integration with Bitcoin native security and a complete Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) Compatibility.
￮ The BounceBit ecosystem has rich infrastructure, such as bridges and oracles, and is also protected and secured through resolute BTC.Under the structural framework of innovative centralized finance (CeFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi), BounceBit empowers Bitcoin holders to earn earnings on multiple networks.
• Project Highlights
￮ PoS Layer1: Unlike Layer2, which is attached to the Bitcoin main chain, BounceBit is self-organized and requires verifiers to pledge the native tokens and BTC of this platform, creating a dual-token security system.This approach not only enhances the security of the network, but also improves the intrinsic value of Bitcoin by making BTC play an active role in network verification.
￮ Cross-chain interoperability: BounceBit supports interoperability of chains compatible with EVM, enabling diversification of pledged assets such as BTCB (Bitcoin on BNB chain) and WBTC (packaged bitcoin), enriching pledged BTCUse cases.
￮ Transparent centralized finance provides real benefits: BounceBit uses Mainnet Digital’s custodial services and Ceffu’s MirrorX technology to keep Bitcoin on the chain while maintaining profits on centralized exchanges through the T+1 settlement cycle.Liquidity and transparency.
UTXO stack
According to the UTXO stack white paper:
• Project Overview
￮ UTXO Stack will be committed to expanding the Bitcoin ecosystem, helping project developers to launch BTC Layer2 based on UTXO architecture with one click, and integrate RGB++ protocol capabilities natively, so that BTC and Stack parallel Layer2 can be seamlessly interoperated without cross-chain bridges., and can guarantee Layer2 security by pledging BTC, CKB and BTC L1 assets.
￮ By providing a service to start UTXO BTC Layer2 with one click, UTXO Stack aims to simplify the creation process of application-specific chains while ensuring interoperability with assets such as BTC and CKB without relying on traditional cross-chain bridging technology.The emergence of UTXO Stack is responding to the market demand for higher performance, greater scalability and lower cost blockchain solutions.
• Project Highlights
￮ UTXO Stack attempts to leverage Bitcoin’s security and credibility as endorsement to drive wider asset issuance and financial innovation on the Bitcoin blockchain.By creating application chains that can easily interoperate with BTC and other UTXO assets, UTXO Stack provides developers with a powerful tool to enable the rapid development and deployment of their financial applications.In addition, by using the PoS (Proof of Stake) mechanism to provide security for these application chains, UTXO Stack is also trying to solve the energy consumption and efficiency challenges of the Bitcoin PoW (Proof of Work) mechanism.
Zeus network
According to the Zeus Network white paper:
• Project Overview
￮ Zeus Network is committed to bringing the next billion users into the Web3 ecosystem.Zeus Network builds cross-chain infrastructure by leveraging Solana.This is achieved by developing Zeus Layer, a pluggable and programmable node network on Solana Virtual Machine (SVM).Zeus Network envisions a future where developers can build decentralized applications (dApps) without permission on bridgeless cross-chain infrastructure.
￮ Zeus Network’s first priority is to introduce Bitcoin liquidity into Solana through its first dApp APOLLO.Zeus Network is bridgeless because the liquidity provider on each chain does not receive backflow liquidity on the other chain, and the assets provided on each chain are protected by their respective protocols.
• Project Highlights
￮ Bridgeless cross-chain technology: By innovatively designing cross-chain solutions that do not require traditional blockchain bridges, the security risks of bridges are avoided, making the cross-chain liquidity of assets safer.Apollo is a cross-chain bridge between BTC and Solana, introducing Bitcoin liquidity into Solana.
￮ Use Solana’s high performance: build cross-chain infrastructure through the world’s fastest, most economical and best-performance blockchain – Solana, which can achieve fast and low-cost cross-chain transactions.
￮ Plugable and Programmable Node Network: Zeus Layer provides a pluggable and programmable framework that enables developers to easily integrate and create dApps that can seamlessly interoperate with Bitcoin and multiple future blockchains.
￮ Security and decentralization: Use advanced encryption technology and fraud proofs, as well as the decentralized operation of distributed node networks, to ensure transaction security and system transparency and justice.
Infrastructure
Monad
According to Monad’s white paper:
• Project Overview
￮ Monad is a high-performance layer 1 (L1) blockchain compatible with Ethereum, aiming to advance the effective boundaries of decentralization and scalability by optimizing key areas.
￮ By introducing four core technologies such as MonadBFT, Deferred Execution, Parallel Execution and MonadDb, Monad has greatly improved the system’s throughput and achieved a processing speed of 10,000 transactions per second.
￮ Its comprehensive EVM bytecode compatibility and Ethereum RPC API compatibility ensures that application developers and users can seamlessly migrate existing Ethereum eco-tools and DApps to the Monad platform and enjoy more efficient blocksChain performance.
• Project Highlights
￮ Ultra-high performance and processing speed: For a blockchain ecosystem that requires large-scale daily active users and high-interactive applications, Monad provides the highest level of performance required to date, which can process 10,000 transactions per second, 1Second block time and finality.
￮ Ethereum Ecocompatibility: Fully compatible with EVM bytecode, allowing applications developed by Ethereum to be moved to Monad without any code modification; Ethereum RPC API is compatible, and users can seamlessly connect using familiar tools (such as MetaMask, Etherscan)Enter Monad.
￮ MonadBFT:An improved version based on the HotStuff consensus algorithm realizes an efficient pipeline consensus mechanism.
▪ Delayed execution: By setting up a pipeline between consensus and execution, the execution budget is significantly improved.
▪ Parallel execution: Use multi-core processing capabilities to execute work, thereby increasing execution speed while maintaining consistency in transaction results.
▪ MonadDb: A high-performance state backend storage system optimized for SSD, enabling efficient state updates and caching.
￮ Low Hardware Introduction Bar and Accessibility: Monad’s hardware requirements for running nodes are kept within a reasonable range, ensuring a low barrier to participation and wide accessibility.
Aptos
According to the Aptos white paper:
• Project Overview
￮ The head Layer1 in a non-EVM-based public chain uses the Move language as the development language.Smart contract execution has always been a bottleneck that limits blockchain throughput. Single-line execution seriously limits the upper limit of its throughput. Aptos has developed the Block-STM smart contract parallel execution engine to improve the efficiency of transaction execution.The core teams include Mo Shaik and Avery Ching, who come to the former Meta team and have rich experience in the traditional Internet field.Historical investors include A16Z, DragonFly, Brevan Howard, Franklin Templton, Tiger, Hashed, Multicoin, etc.
￮ Recently, Aptos Labs has established new partnerships with Microsoft, Brevan Howard, SK Telecom and Boston Consulting Group to develop Aptos Ascend, a platform designed to provide an on-chain digital asset management platform for institutional clients, supporting the addition of globallyliquidity of RWA type assets, etc.
• Project Highlights
￮ Technological Innovation and Performance: Aptos is known for the novelty of its technology stack, including the AptosBFTv4 consensus mechanism, the Quorum Store memory pool protocol, the Block-STM parallel execution engine, and its programming language Aptos Move.The combination of these technologies provides Aptos with high throughput and low latency, especially its ability to achieve 30,000 transactions per second in a test environment and its ability to process over 9 billion transactions during a specific event demonstrates its superior performance.
￮ Security and Upgradeability: Aptos focuses on security and upgradeability in particular, enhances the security of smart contracts using the Aptos Move language and allows frequent network upgrades to quickly deploy new technologies and fixes.
￮ Ecosystem Growth and Partnerships: Since its launch, Aptos has rapidly grown its ecosystem by establishing key partnerships, including partnerships with Microsoft, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud and other well-known companies, funding programs and hackathons.The project focused on expanding its reach in the Asia-Pacific region, establishing partnerships with several prominent gaming companies and conglomerates, promoting the development of DeFi, social media, and gaming and NFT applications.
￮ Market Adoption and Network Activities: Aptos drives network activities with one-day public art creation activities such as Chingari social media platforms, Python oracle integration and Graffio’s one-day public art creation activities, showing strong market adoption.The average daily transaction volume exceeds 475,000 and more than 72,000 active addresses per day, proves its strong user engagement and network utility.
￮ Future-oriented technology roadmap: Aptos’ technology roadmap for the future, including planning for storage sharding, commitment to achieving 100,000 to 1 million transactions per second, and developing a new Aptos Move compiler, highlights itsThe commitment to being an innovation platform is constantly advancing to adapt to the needs of future Web3.
Movement
According to the Movement white paper:
• Project Overview
￮ Movement Labs aims to solve the widespread smart contract vulnerabilities in the Ethereum ecosystem, while introducing a new execution environment that allows the system to handle more than 30,000 transactions per second.Movement aims to combine smart contract security and parallelization with EVM liquidity and user base, introducing MoveVM for Ethereum through its flagship L2 and connecting to Move Stack.By utilizing a fully EVM-compatible bytecode interpreter and Ethereum as settlement method, Movement, as a ZK Layer 2, will improve parallelization capabilities and smart contract security for the Ethereum ecosystem.
• Project Highlights
￮ Friendly Development Experience: Introducing MoveVM to Layer2, it provides a powerful Fractal translator, converts Solidity smart contracts into Move bytecode, enhances the functionality and security of smart contracts, and provides them with other blockchain systems.high interoperability.
￮ Flexibility and scalability: M2’s modular design abstracts the consensus layer from the execution layer, allowing each protocol layer to work independently and keep synchronized.
￮ High speed and low fee: Sub-second finality is achieved through parallel Move-EVM and decentralized Sequencer, which is said to reach <$0.01 Gas fees, theoretical TPS 160,000+.
￮ High compatibility: EVM compatible, supports both aptos and sui move.It also has deep connection with Cosmos, supporting native USDC and Cosmos wallets.
StakeStone
According to the StakeStone white paper:
• Project Overview
StakeStone is a full-chain LST (Liquid Stake Token, liquidity staking token) liquidity protocol, aiming to bring native staking income and liquidity to Layer 2 in a decentralized way.StakeStone is highly scalable, supports various staking pools, and is compatible with the upcoming Restaking.At the same time, it has established a multi-chain liquidity market based on StakeStone native LST STONE, providing STONE users with more use cases and profit opportunities.
• Project Highlights
￮ LST liquidity cross-chain market: StakeStone is committed to building a cross-chain market that specifically targets LST (liquidity staked tokens) liquidity, connecting Ethereum and other blockchains.This provides the basis for the seamless transfer of assets between different blockchains, while also solving the problem of liquidity split between the mainnet and the Layer 2 network.
￮ OPAP mechanism: The Optimized Portfolio and Allocation Advice (OPAP) mechanism pioneered by StakeStone provides a decentralized solution for liquid staking.This allows users to obtain STONE tokens whose value increases over time by depositing ETH, thereby realizing strategic allocation of assets and optimizing staking returns.
￮ Diversified Applications and Efficiency: STONE is not just a token representing ETH staked, it can also be used as an equivalent asset for ETH in various DeFi, GameFi or NFTfi platforms.This diversified usage scenario greatly enhances the practicality and attractiveness of STONE.
￮ LayerZero Integration and Cross-chain Support: With LayerZero technology, STONE supports seamless transfer and price alignment between multiple blockchains, making it suitable for a wide range of networks and ecosystems such as Ethereum, Manta, Base, BNBChain, Mantle, Linea, etc.
￮ Rapid growth in capital and markets: Since its launch, StakeStone’s total locked value (TVL) has seen rapid growth, reaching a maximum of $1.38 billion, showing strong demand and trust in such solutions.
￮ Through these highlights, StakeStone not only provides users with robust staking income, but also attempts to solve the fragmentation and efficiency problems existing in the existing blockchain ecosystem. It is a forward-looking and innovative staking solution..
Games and applications
Cellulla
According to the Cellula white paper:
• Project Overview
Cellulla is a full-chain artificial life simulation strategy game that allows users to play “Conway Life Game” through the on-chain cell automaton.In the game, NFTs can reproduce, grow, evolve or die on the blockchain, creating an “NFT Arena” by turning each NFT into an autonomous life form.
• Project Highlights
￮ Full-chain game with unique gameplay. Cellula is a full-chain Conway life game that uses the MUD engine, similar to the actual evolutionary programming method to simulate life games; in the future, NFT can be given a possible gameplay that combines various smart contracts through ERC6551.
￮ Character Growth: The evolution that gives NFT autonomous.Traditional NFTs empower top-down (creators give value and send airdrops), while Cellula gives creators rights by building games and giving NFTs growth and composition.
￮ Composability: Game metadata can be combined with other NFTs as raw materials.Similar to Lego, it can be combined with traditional NFTs or other items and given its special identity through gene.
UXLink
According to the UXLink white paper:
• Project Overview
￮ UXLINK is the Web3 social platform and infrastructure with the largest number of users, enabling users and developers to discover, distribute and trade crypto assets in a social and group manner.
￮ In the past 1 year since the UXLINK product was launched, there have been more than 5.7 million registered users of UXLINK, more than 100,000 groups, more than 1.2 million daily active users of DAPP, and more than 300,000 daily active users on the chain.Currently, the number of daily active users on the chain is firmly ranked among the top three.
• Project Highlights
￮ Link To Earn.Different from other social products, UXLINK focuses on acquaintances, which is a realistic view of the social status of the real world.Through the “Link To Earn” acquaintance recommendation trust mechanism and the disruptive “Web3 group” bring a new user connection method and organizational form, forming a unique protocol and data layer, which can give developers in the Web3 field uniquevalue.
￮ High growth.It is currently the product with the largest traffic in social tracks. Its users are evenly distributed in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Japan and South Korea, South Asia, South America and other Africa, and has accumulated rich and connected user data.
￮ UXLINK migrates and deepens real social relationships and scenarios, and combines the nature of Web3 to innovate it, integrating assets and social interactions.Because of the unique traffic and data, a large number of partners who are willing to pay have also attracted, forming a positive cycle between users and partners.
Matr1x
According to the Matr1x white paper:
• Project Overview
￮ Matr1x is a Web3 gaming platform.Implement high-quality strategies, self-develop and jointly release game products.The middle-end protocol for Web3 games has been independently developed to help more Web2 game products enter Web3.
￮ The first game, Matr1x Fire, is an FPS mobile game.Since its launch, the cumulative number of registered users has reached 1.05 million, the number of game downloads exceeded 1.19 million, the number of UAW is 490,000, and the number of transfers is 1.26 million, currently ranks first in polygon.
• Project Highlights
￮ Integrates e-sports elements and naturally attracts young user groups.At present, Matr1x has carried out 40+ online and offline events around the world, covering more than 50 game communities, covering more than 20 countries and regions, with a total of more than 100,000 participants. It is currently the first in the entire Web3 industry.E-sports brand.
￮ Pay attention to the value attributes of in-game assets, which are asset attributes that have been verified in Web2.The core of the shooting category focuses on game accessories trading. For example, Web2’s classic game CSSGO has more than US$38 billion in transactions every year, which has great potential.Currently, Matr1x has successfully issued three sets of equity NFTs, with the number of addresses currently held by more than 800,000, and the cumulative transaction volume is more than 150 million US dollars.
￮ The teams are all from world-class companies, with many years of experience in gaming and blockchain, and have successfully developed and distributed a number of games, with a cumulative turnover of more than 30 billion RMB and a cumulative number of users.
Debox
According to the Debox white paper:
• Project Overview
￮ DeBox is a DID-based Web3 community management tool.Users and NFT users who hold ERC-20 tokens can join the corresponding group without permission and can use the lottery, proposal, voting and other functions provided by the product.
• Project Highlights
￮ Debox connects the user side and the community side, and is a bridge to meet the needs of both parties.On the community side, it is a community-driven management tool, including elections, voting, finance, events, lottery, airdrops, event assessments, etc.; on the user side, it provides all users with equal, unauthorized and simple access to the information portal.Therefore, debox has a strong user base. Currently, DAU11K+, holder 90K+, 24241 communities, and most users are cryptocurrency newcomers from apps.
￮ AI and intent-centric, more than 100 AI robots powered by large models, including GC, transactions, searches, etc., provide users with a good and seamless experience
￮ Debox’s current ecosystem is showing an organic growth trend.Debox’s current transaction volume is more than 120 million from internal Dex, 59.1 million from innovative social assets, and monthly net profit exceeds US$80,000.
Privasea.io
According to the Privasea white paper:
• Project Overview
￮ Privasea AI network is an artificial intelligence processing system that focuses on data privacy and security. It uses Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) technology to calculate through encrypted data to ensure the confidentiality and security of sensitive information.
￮ Privasea AI network effectively solves the privacy protection and data security problems faced in AI data processing through its advanced all-homomorphic encryption technology and multi-level architecture design, while providing efficient and easy-to-use solutions to suit different users.and the needs of the scenario.
• Project Highlights
￮ Privacy protection: Through fully homomorphic encryption technology, Privasea AI can analyze and process data without decrypting it.This means that even if the data is processed in a cloud environment or a distrustful computing environment, the user’s sensitive information is still effectively protected.Strict data protection regulations such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provide privacy protection AI solutions that comply with regulations.
￮ Distributed AI Computing: Privasea AI uses blockchain technology to incentivize and manage a distributed network consisting of multiple computing nodes to provide the necessary AI processing capabilities.This not only increases the availability of computing resources, but also improves the transparency and security of the system through a decentralized approach.
￮ Rich application scenarios: Combining FHE and AI, Privasea AI has opened up new paths for privacy-protected machine learning and artificial intelligence applications.The application scenarios cover multiple fields such as finance, medical care, and security supervision, providing a comprehensive solution that protects data privacy while making full use of the value of data.
Risk warning:
This article is for reference only.
This article is not intended to provide (i) investment advice or investment recommendation; (ii) offer or solicitation for the purchase, sale or holding of digital assets; or (iii) financial, accounting, legal or tax advice.Digital assets, including stablecoins and NFTs, are involved in high risks and can fluctuate significantly and even become worthless.Please be responsible for understanding and abide by relevant local applicable laws and regulations.
