Wishing you a prosperous start! In the past 7 days, you may have missed these hot topics and ecological opportunities
Aptos surges, Xiaohongshu's Web3 ambitions, Injective deploys ecological fund...Organizer: Nianqing, ChainCatcher
I. What Important Events Happened in the Past 7 Days
1. U.S. Government Releases Roadmap to Mitigate Cryptocurrency Risks
On January 27, local time, the official website of the White House released a "Roadmap to Mitigate Cryptocurrency Risks." The government acknowledged the improvements in payment efficiency, cost, and security of cryptocurrency technology. A first framework has been established, which includes separating risky digital assets from the banking system, prioritizing digital asset research and development to be announced in the coming months, expanding the powers of regulatory agencies by Congress, enhancing transparency and disclosure requirements for cryptocurrency companies, and providing funding for strengthening law enforcement capabilities.
2. Aptos Price Soars, Total On-chain Addresses Exceed 3 Million
Aptos token APT rapidly rose from $6.7 on January 19 to over $20, currently reported at around $18. According to data from OKLink multi-chain explorer, the total number of on-chain addresses for Aptos has exceeded 3 million, reaching 3,095,124. The total number of transactions on the Aptos chain has surpassed 77 million, with a TPS of 6.38 transactions per second.
3. FTX Discloses Complete List of Institutional Creditors, Including Apple, Netflix, and Coinbase
FTX's financial advisor disclosed the complete list of the company's institutional creditors in a court document. This lengthy document, over a hundred pages, is arranged alphabetically and includes publicly listed tech companies like Apple and WeWork, as well as numerous digital asset companies such as Coinbase, Binance Capital Management, Chainalysis, Yuga Labs, Doodles, and Silvergate Bank. Additionally, some mentioned companies may be related to goods and services owed by FTX. Pharmacy CVS is listed as one of the exchange's corporate creditors, along with Netflix and Comcast.
4. dYdX Delays Token Unlocking for $156 Million Investors from February to December
The decentralized derivatives exchange dYdX has postponed the unlocking of tokens for investors from February 3 to December 1. dYdX was originally set to release 150 million tokens (worth $282 million) to investors, community members, and project treasury next month. According to the new schedule, 30% will be unlocked on December 1, followed by 40% of the total tokens being unlocked monthly over the next six months, and then 20% unlocked the following year, with 10% the year after.
5. Amazon May Launch Game-focused NFT Project
According to sources cited by Blockworks, Amazon is establishing a digital asset company that will involve Layer 1 blockchain, blockchain-based games, and trading platforms, with a focus on blockchain-based games and related NFT applications. Amazon customers will be able to earn free NFTs by participating in its crypto games. Sources indicate that the plan is still in progress, and Amazon may go public with it in April this year.
6. Xiaohongshu Integrates Conflux Network, Allowing Users to Showcase Conflux-based NFTs in "R-Space"
Xiaohongshu announced the integration of Conflux Network, allowing users to showcase NFTs minted on Conflux on their profile pages in a digital collection section called "R-Space." This is reportedly Xiaohongshu's first public chain integration feature, aside from its connection with private consortium chains.
This move further strengthens Xiaohongshu's Web3 ambitions. Previously, Xiaohongshu launched limited digital collectibles based on Tencent's Zhixin Chain for the Winter Olympics and invested in the NFT interaction platform Shil.me. The R-Space laboratory partner, Azuki Chinese community "Azuki Hongdou Garden," has also recently officially settled on Xiaohongshu.
During last year's CCTV Spring Festival Gala, Shen Teng's mention of "DogeKing" caused a meme project of the same name to skyrocket 800 times overnight, making headlines on social media. As the Spring Festival approaches again, the "Shen Teng" concept coin is making a comeback. The skit performed by Shen Teng's team in 2023 is titled "Keng." A series of meme projects named "keng" have emerged, mainly concentrated on the BSC chain. According to ave.ai data, over 50 "keng" named projects have been recorded.
8. Electric Capital: 80% of Wallet First Transactions Related to NFTs in 2022, Far Exceeding DeFi
According to the "2022 Electric Capital Developer Report," 80% of wallet first transactions in the past year were related to NFTs, significantly surpassing DeFi. Additionally, the number of monthly active developers in the NFT space reached 929, showing a clear growth trend.
9. Adidas Establishes Web3 Studio "/// Studio" to Develop and Deliver Web 3.0 Initiatives
According to a disclosure from Adidas's NFT project Indigo Herz on social media, the well-known sports brand Adidas has established a Web3 Three Stripes Studio "/// Studio," representing innovation, collaboration, and culture. This studio will be responsible for the development and delivery of all Adidas global Web 3.0 initiatives, aiming to define and build brand strategies, partnerships, communities, events, and products.
II. Ecological Opportunities Not to Be Missed
1. Cosmos-based DeFi Public Chain Sei
The Cosmos-based DeFi Layer 1 blockchain project Sei has secured a total of $70 million in ecosystem funding within just eight months since its establishment. Co-founder Jayendra Jog stated that since the Terra incident and FTX bankruptcy, Sei has begun to see teams from different ecosystems flocking in. Currently, the ecosystem has over 100 projects, and Sei hopes to continue expanding into the Asian market, as it sees potential in technological advancements and high cryptocurrency usage in the region, along with the presence of excellent developers.
2. Cosmos-based EVM Public Chain Canto
DeFiLlama data shows that since 2023, Canto's total TVL has been rapidly increasing, with a 20.36% growth in the past week and a 93.53% increase in the past month. Its TVL has grown from $66 million at the beginning of the year to $132 million currently. CoinGecko data indicates that Canto's price has risen 30% in the last 24 hours, reaching $0.386, compared to just $0.08 on January 1 this year.
On January 22, Canto announced the Contract Secured Revenue (CSR). CSR is a fee-sharing model for the Canto network that allows contract developers to extract a certain percentage from the transaction fees paid to the network when users interact with the contract, thereby generating revenue.
On January 25, the DeFi-optimized public chain Injective announced the launch of a $150 million ecosystem plan to further promote developers building new applications on its chain. Notable institutions spanning Web3 and traditional finance have joined this plan, including Pantera Capital, Kucoin Ventures, Jump Crypto, IDG Capital, Gate Labs, Delphi Labs, Flow Traders, and Kraken Ventures. The Injective ecosystem fund is also one of the largest funds in the Cosmos community.
Last August, Injective gradually transitioned from a decentralized derivatives protocol to a Layer 1 blockchain. Since then, projects like Wormhole and Frontrunner have been integrated into Injective.
Sui Network recently launched Sui Testnet Wave 2, which will focus on testing the epoch management, token economics, and staking of the Sui network, allowing builders to publish, test, and share their applications on the testnet, with anyone able to run a full node. Wave 2 will test its token economics' epoch management and gas mechanism through two test games, Frenemies and Validator Game.
On January 27, Celo announced the Celo 2.0 roadmap on its official blog, stating that it will align deeply with the Ethereum roadmap; achieve horizontal scalability by making Celo a rollup-friendly chain; make Celo the fastest EVM L1; improve CELO token economics and reward contributors, exploring buybacks and burns of CELO to optimize its value; provide top-notch developer experience; and establish robust wallet and application building modules.
DeFiLlama data shows that since 2023, Celo's total TVL has been rapidly increasing, with an 11.12% growth in the past week and a 70.45% increase in the past month.
III. These Articles Are Worth Reading
1. "A Comprehensive Analysis: How to Divide the Four Levels of Web3 Ecological Architecture?"
As Web3 has developed, the ecosystem has begun to take shape. If we abstract a bird's-eye view of the current stage of the Web3 ecological composition, it can be divided into four levels from bottom to top: Blockchain Network Layer, Middleware Layer, Application Layer, Access Layer. This article will specifically elaborate on what each level entails.
2. "Vitalik's New Work: An Incomplete Guide to Stealth Addresses"
One of the biggest challenges in the current Ethereum ecosystem is privacy. By default, anything that enters a public blockchain is public, which means not only assets and transaction activities but also ENS domain names, POAPs, NFTs, and soulbound tokens. Using a series of Ethereum applications means that many of your activities will be visible and analyzable by others.
We need to improve this situation. However, so far, discussions about improving privacy have mainly revolved around a specific use case: the privacy-protecting transfer of ETH and mainstream ERC20 tokens. This article will describe a mechanism and use cases for a different category of tools that can improve Ethereum's privacy status in many other scenarios, namely the concept of "stealth addresses."
Today, the most talked-about topics around us are AI and Web3, regardless of whether ChatGPT is overrated or how much of the Web3 concept is marketing. A unique atmosphere in the field of internet technology seems to hint that the next information age is approaching. Tim Gong, a successful VC investor from the Web2 era and partner at SIG China, had a dialogue with Element founder Wang Feng as the Chinese New Year approaches. The two industry leaders engaged in a fascinating discussion on the development of the internet, public chain ecology, Web3, and more.
4. "Pantera Capital's Letter to Investors: 2022 Review and Future Outlook"
In its letter to investors, Pantera Capital summarized the major events and development trends in the crypto industry in 2022 and provided an outlook for the market in the coming year. Most importantly, Pantera Capital provided a boost of confidence to a market severely impacted in 2022 with solid data and projections at the beginning of 2023, stating, "We believe this is an excellent time to start a company in the blockchain space. Compared to previous cycles, the talent pool is better educated and more passionate about the industry. In the first half of 2022, $121 billion was raised across the entire VC industry, waiting to be deployed."
5. "A&T Capital: Insights on Cosmos Ecosystem Pain Points and Opportunities from ATOM 2.0"
In September 2022, Cosmos officially released the white paper for ATOM 2.0, which comprehensively reformed its tokenomics. However, due to concerns about inflation and devaluation caused by the massive initial issuance of ATOM outlined in the new white paper, Cosmos officials released a revised version of the white paper (v1.2) on October 25, 2022, adjusting the ATOM issuance plan, but still faced strong opposition from Cosmos founder Jae Kwon.
The ATOM 2.0 proposal ended in a phased failure, but its significance is substantial, reflecting the current pain points and trends in Cosmos. Its proposal and rejection both embody the vitality of the Cosmos ecosystem's metabolism and its decentralized mission. This article describes the changes in Cosmos ecosystem data, analyzes the significance and controversies of the ATOM 2.0 proposal, and attempts to summarize the current pain points and segmented track opportunities in the Cosmos ecosystem, as well as listing the current investment logic and financing suggestions in the Cosmos primary market.
