This edition of the newsletter dives into our takeaways from different ecosystems during this year's Token2049 in Singapore. We'll also share some interesting articles, portfolio updates and market highlights.
1. Research Articles
a) YTD Aptos Report: H1 2024
• Aptos has seen significant growth in 2024. Key partnerships with Chainlink, NBCUniversal, and others have boosted its capabilities in data services, entertainment, and DeFi.
• The network also achieved impressive performance milestones with sub-second transaction latency and millions of transactions processed daily. This growth is reflected in a rise in daily active users, showcasing the increasing adoption of Aptos.
b) Breakpoint 2024: Kaito's Ultimate Alpha-Packed Summary of Product Keynotes
• Solana Breakpoint 2024 showcased a wide range of innovative products, from DeFi solutions and NFTs to payment platforms and decentralized infrastructure.
• Key highlights include enhanced staking, stablecoin advancements, cross-chain integrations, and real-world applications.
c) What Is BeraChain and Proof of Liquidity?
• Berachain operates on the Proof-of-Liquidity consensus mechanism and uses BERA for gas fees and BGT for governance.
• With fast transaction finality and low fees, Berachain is a scalable and modular network currently in the public testnet phase.
In this beginner's guide, we dive into @berachain, explain how it works, and explore its token utility and ecosystem
What Is BeraChain and Proof of Liquidity? | CoinGecko
Berachain is an EVM-identical Layer 1 that utilizes Proof-of-Liquidity to provide applications with a liquidity-rich ecosystem to build on.
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2. Portfolio Highlights
a) W3GG
• The $W3GG is going live soon, the team shares more on the tokenomics in their Twitter post.
• In short, it is a utility token for W3GG's gaming ecosystem, offering users access to exclusive benefits like IGOs, staking rewards, gameFi rewards, premium access, governance, and more.
Curious about $W3GG? Here's a quick overview of our tokenomics!
#w3ntoken #PlayToEarn #Web3Gaming
b) Mina
• Aligned Layer is a bridge that allows Ethereum developers to easily use Mina's "Proof of Everything" technology.
• This enables fast and cheap verification of ZK proofs, opening up new possibilities for building decentralized applications on both chains.
c) MyShell
• Hyperbolic's high-performance AI models are now integrated into MyShell, a decentralized platform enabling creators to build AI applications.
• This collaboration provides developers with access to state-of-the-art AI technology at a fraction of the cost, empowering them to innovate and succeed in a decentralized environment.
d) Jambo
• Jambo reveals their JamboPhone 2 during this year's Solana Breakpoint with new features such as integration of JamboGPT and various pre-installed apps by different partners.
• In terms of specs, it is their most powerful phone to date with: 12GB ram, 128GB storage, Tri-cam setup and 12 hours battery.
Today we just launched JamboPhone 2 on Solana Breakpoint MainStage @solana
Augmented, Bolder, Stronger
...and still priced at only $99, shipping to 128 countries
Get yours today: jambophone.xyz
3. Token2049 Singapore Ecosystem Takeaways
We observed how different ecosystems were discussed during Token2049 and Breakpoint in Singapore this year. Below are some high level thoughts:
Ethereum
$ETH remains to be the most hated asset, facing intense scrutiny as debates around L2-L1 misalignment are still ongoing. While these continue, solutions like based rollups aim to potentially solve the incentive barrier and unlock new scaling potential. However, scaling the L1 remains a top priority, and the narrative around based rollups and pre-confirmations is still in early days of development, leaving room for doubt about their long-term viability. However, advancements like multi-concurrent proposers (BRAID/FOCIL) and shorter block times hinting to significant potential breakthroughs on the L1.
Solana
DeFi on Solana is just getting started, with much more yet to come, as seasoned and new emerging devs continue to drive innovation within the ecosystem. At the same time, core infrastructure teams are working hard to scale the L1 infinitely, with Firedancer's testnet achieving a jaw-dropping 1M TPS across 100 globally distributed validators, while new high-performance clients are just getting started, thriving for more scalability in execution. On the other hand, developers are pushing boundaries by experimenting with ephemeral rollups on the SVM, however it still remains unclear how much orders of magnitude more efficiency those eventually provide. On the application leayer, key verticals like DePIN, RWAs, and PayFi are emerging as focal points for innovation, attracting significant developer and user attention, becoming an essential part of shaping Solanas ecosystem.
megaETH
megaETH gave us promising early ecosystem vibes, with creative founders exploring groundbreaking dApps that aim to tap-into and showcase MegaETH’s technical and high-performance properties. Meanwhile, BD and ecosystem teams are working hard to build a passionate cult around MegaETH, attracting hungry and ambitious founders. Beyond DeFi, teams are pushing into diverse verticals like DePIN, AI, gaming, social, and TG apps, expanding the ecosystem’s reach outside of DeFi to attract net new application users. That being said, the ecosystem and tech is still not mature enough to draw clear lines. As attention span in this industry is clearly usually small, creating a robust ecosystem of developers and users will require a clear and long term bd strategy. On the technical front, as we approach testnet in the next couple of months, we'll likely gain a clearer understanding from developers on how advanced the tech and the performance truly is.
Hyperliquid
Seemingly the DEX where traders want to be right now, with an ecosystem full of promising builders and interesting ideas, though yet to see a 0-1. While experiencing a huge uptrend in net new depositors, retention rates and trader profile will be clear post TGE, revealing whether the DEX is dominated by whales, low-mid volume traders or just farming bots. However, if the development continues to grow at such pace, we might experience a DEX that is truly compete with leading CEX's in the near future and challenge their current status quo.
Bittensor
Bittensor and $TAO regained the dominance within the crypto x AI narrative, heavily influenced by introducing $dTAO. This shift is exciting to builders across the ecosystem, and inspires the development of innovative and specialized subnets. As a result, we're seeing a surge in developer adoption, with creative ideas pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Yuma, Bittensor’s consensus mechanism, empowers subnet owners to design custom incentive structures, enabling validators to influence the network’s learning based on their unique preferences. With the introduction of $dTAO, Yuma’s incentives can be refined to better align economic rewards with key network goals, such as enhanced intelligence, efficiency, and diversity in knowledge production. This alignment can potentially motivate subnet owners and miners to continuously optimize their contributions, driving higher-quality outputs across the entire network.
Monad
The Monad ecosystem is experiencing exponential growth, with increasing mindshare across the broader space. As the community anticipates the mainnet launch in Q1 2025, major protocols such as Priori, Kuru, and Knits, among others, have secured substantial funding to develop industry-disrupting solutions that leverage Monad's innovative infrastructure. While we commonly see applications like DEXs, CLOBs, and lending markets emerging in new ecosystems, developers within Monad aim to push boundaries by creating entirely new categories of applications—bridging high-performance Layer 1 capabilities with web2-like user experiences.
Sonic
The Sonic ecosystem is rapidly gaining momentum, driven by strong community-led initiatives and a focus on educating the broader industry about Sonic’s groundbreaking technological innovations. This growth is further supported by incentives such as the Boom Program and Innovation Fund, which provide essential funding and acceleration for pioneering projects building on Sonics L2. As one of the first parallelized EVM-compatible L2s, Sonic holds a strategic advantage, being closer to market than newer chains while delivering cutting-edge improvements like subsecond finality, 10,000 TPS, and parallel execution. With native L2 composability, Sonic enables seamless integration with existing Ethereum tooling, while its use of the network’s native token, “S,” ensures that applications can capture 90% of gas costs, effectively driving greater value retention for projects building on the network.
Mina
Largely flying under the radar, Mina is quietly revolutionising the industry by pushing boundaries to accelerate and drive the adoption of zk. No other protocol showcases ZK’s usability and potential quite like Mina. The latest integration and partnership with Aligned layer is set to unlock the true potential of ZK technology with the Aligned state bridge connecting Mina to Ethereum. Mina is unique as the only Layer 1 blockchain capable of recursively proving its entire chain state in a single proof, solving state bloat issues that hinder scalability on other blockchains. The Aligned bridge provides Ethereum with an efficient ZK verification layer, enabling cheap and fast verification of ZK proofs within the EVM, overcoming current interoperability challenges. This bridge will allow Ethereum developers to run a full Mina node through smart contracts, unlocking a new class of applications that leverage Mina’s lightweight and composable ZK proofs. With Mina’s "Proof of Everything," developers can verify the entire chain, offering unmatched ZK composability and enabling applications to build on and extend previous proofs. This opens the door to powerful ZK solutions without the performance and compatibility trade-offs faced by zkEVMs, making Mina a game-changer for developers in the Ethereum ecosystem.
This article was written by 0xNiko
