Bankless: Which crypto projects are growing against the trend in a bear market?

Author: Lucas Campbell

Compiled by: Shenchao TechFlow

The cryptocurrency market is undeniably in a bear market. However, another undeniable fact is that there are still a few sectors and projects thriving based on key fundamental performance indicators.

Here are 5 projects that are undeterred and experiencing their own bull markets.

1. Lens Protocol

Lens Protocol is a Web3 social platform that has reached all-time highs across various metrics.

First, monthly engagement has nearly doubled, with 370,000 interactions per month in posts, comments, and mirrors (equivalent to retweets).

Despite being in a bear market, interactions with Lens Protocol and its main application, Lenster, are at an all-time high.

With increased user engagement, the number of monthly active profiles is hitting all-time highs, reaching nearly 40,000 individual profiles on the protocol. This is an increase of about 14,800 profiles in November, a 59% rise from the previous month.

Naturally, with the increase in engagement, the number of wallets holding Lens is steadily rising, now exceeding 98,000 wallets. At the current rate, we should expect to see the total number of wallets holding Lens surpass 100,000 in the coming days.

2. Sound

Since peaking in April, the activity on the music NFT platform has been recovering.

The number of songs minted on the platform reached an all-time high as early as October, but then more than doubled this metric in November, with over 12,000 music NFTs minted in a single month. For reference, this is a 242% increase from the previous record in April 2022, when ETH was above $3,000.

However, the minting of songs is just the beginning, as the number of collectors is also surging, with 1,442 active collectors emerging in November, bringing the total number of unique addresses collecting these new media NFTs to 6,500.

Although it hasn't surpassed previous records, we are seeing a substantial upward trend in secondary market trading volume. The total trading volume in the secondary market reached $271,000 in November, bringing the protocol back to levels seen in 2021/2022.

That said, Sound Protocol has just celebrated its 1-year anniversary.

3. Optimism

While Web3 social platforms like Lens and Sound are making great strides, another area is also gaining significant adoption: Layer 2.

Since launching its token in May, Optimism has seen a substantial increase in usage across multiple key metrics.

The first, and arguably the most critical, is the number of transactions (without transactions, blockchains have no value). Optimism's daily transaction volume has reached astonishing levels.

Optimism's daily transaction volume is surging, hitting an all-time high of 500,000 transactions per day. For reference, Ethereum processes more than double this number daily, around 1 million transactions (at its current pace).

Predictably, the number of unique addresses on the network is also multiplying. The network has just surpassed 2 million unique addresses—an important milestone for the second-largest L2 by value locked.

The last metric for Optimism that has reached a new high is the number of deployed verified contracts. This is a key indicator of project activity on the network and builder engagement. The trend is clear: after a spike to an all-time high of 115 contracts deployed over a month ago, it has been fluctuating around that level.

4. Arbitrum

Optimism is not alone. Its strongest competitor, Arbitrum, has also reached similar heights. Let's take a look at the exact same metrics to give you a clear picture of how these projects stack up.

Arbitrum's daily transaction volume has now also hit an all-time high, surpassing its competitor with 575,000 transactions per day.

Arbitrum now boasts over 2 million unique addresses and is currently approaching 2.25 million addresses—slightly ahead of its main competitor.

In terms of deployed verified contracts, Arbitrum recently peaked at deploying 176 contracts in a single day, consistently surging to over 100 contracts per day in recent months.

It is now clear that the trend for Layer 2 is upward.

What is the key difference between Optimism and Arbitrum now?

Optimism launched its OP token back in May.

Arbitrum has yet to launch its token, and its most powerful weapon has yet to be deployed.

5. Rocket Pool

So far, we've seen Web3 social and Layer 2. Now, let's talk about another area that is on the rise: liquid staking. More specifically, Rocket Pool, which has seen staggering growth levels in recent months.

Although it is cumulative, the adoption of various key metrics for Rocket Pool is accelerating. The primary metric is the circulating supply of rETH, which has soared to over 150,000 rETH. For reference, this number was only 75,000 in September, meaning they have doubled their total supply in just three months.

While strong, it still significantly lags behind the leading protocol Lido, which currently holds 4.5 million ETH within its purview. That said, Rocket Pool and Lido have a key design difference. Anyone can run a Rocket Pool validator (called Minipools), while Lido does not allow this.

When looking at the data, this proves to be a powerful growth driver, as the number of Minipools has just reached 10,000 independent nodes.

When users run a Minipool, they need to stake additional amounts of RPL as "insurance" to protect the ETH they "borrow" to run a full validator. Therefore, as the number of Minipools increases on the network, the amount of RPL staked on the network has risen to 7.8 million RPL. This represents 41% of the current network supply being locked to support the validation of liquid stakers.

Not All Doom and Gloom

While cryptocurrency prices have dropped significantly over the past year, it is important that we look beyond the surface.

Why?

Because these are often opportunities that yield returns in bull markets.

This article is not claiming that these projects are the next big narrative. It is more about highlighting that the charts for these projects are strong, while others are just experiencing unwarranted declines.

Thus, as we search for the light at the end of the dark tunnel, these projects serve as our guiding lights.