A review of 15 cryptocurrency projects driven by catalysts recently

Author: Ignas | DeFi

Compiled by: Shenchao TechFlow

The current crypto bull market is primarily influenced by external macro factors, but exciting new product launches and catalysts are on the horizon, which will drive the development of the internal crypto ecosystem.

Here are the top 15 projects I am paying attention to:

Monad (Expected to launch mainnet by the end of 2024)

Do we really need another alit-L1?

Will it become another low-traffic, high-market-cap sell-off feast?

Can Monad attract unique, non-forked decentralized applications (dApps)?

MegaETH (Expected to launch mainnet by the end of 2024)

Is it just an ordinary Layer 2 solution, or a true game changer that brings heat to the ETH+L2 modular scaling roadmap?

Can it truly achieve 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) and 1 millisecond block time, or is it just the old tricks from the previous bull market?

Berachain

Is this a place for speculators and insiders to profit and sell off, or a wealth creation platform offering unique non-forked dApps for early users?

I am skeptical about this, but I am open to being pleasantly surprised by positive outcomes.

Eigenlayer Second Staking Event

Expected to conduct EIGEN trading in Q3/Q4, along with multiple AVS launching on the mainnet:

It's time to clarify the true value of re-staking for the crypto community, as not many people understand it yet.

The token release will reveal whether re-staking is still in high demand.

Eigenlayer (Upcoming permissionless token support)

Due to venture capital firms and teams taking a conservative approach to old, proven models, innovation in token economics has stagnated.

Can re-staking bring new utility and excitement to token economics, benefiting its community?

Symbiotic (Expected to launch mainnet in Q3)

Will Symbiotic outpace Eigenlayer in the token generation event ( TGE ) and take the crown of "re-staking" hype from Eigenlayer?

Considering recent Paradigm-backed projects like Friend Tech and Blast, it may perform well initially, but the specifics remain to be seen.

Ethereum Pectra Upgrade (Expected in Q1 2025)

Can the account abstraction of EIP-7702 put an end to those annoying token approvals?

Will Pectra have any positive impact on ETH's lagging price?

Fantom is rebranding to Sonic:

A phoenix rising from the ashes, with a new name, new token $S, and new charts, or something else?

A successful rebranding can inspire other projects, bring new narratives, and provide insights for short-term trading.

Maker's rebranding: Transition to NewGovToken and NewStableToken

Maker has evolved into a very complex system, even seasoned veterans in the crypto space find it hard to keep up.

Can this rebranding simplify operations, making it easier to understand and thus drive the supply growth of $DAI?

Pudgy Penguin's L2 solution (Abstract), Story (IP Chain), and Sony's Soneium: Is this the beginning of a new crypto narrative?

Can they actually build new monetization models for creators and consumers in the AI era?

If successful, it may attract new crypto users beyond the speculative crowd.

Fractal Bitcoin (Mainnet launching soon) and OP_CAT:

Despite the FOMO and price drops of BRC20s, Ordinals, and Runes, these two developments are bringing back the heat for native Bitcoin. Will their hype continue?

Additionally, the successful launch of the Babylon mainnet shows a demand for DeFi on BTC.

Stacks Nakamoto Upgrade (Coming soon):

Will this upgrade attract more users and increase the total value locked (TVL) in the ecosystem? Will the airdrop in the Stacks ecosystem create a wealth effect?

Currently, Stacks holds a dominant market share in BTC Layer 2, but competitors are quickly catching up.

Coinbase cbBTC Launch:

After changes in the management structure of wBTC, another opportunity for ERC20 BTC has emerged.

cbBTC will capture most of the total value locked in wBTC. Which DeFi BTC wrapper will appear next? This could be a promising trading opportunity.

Uniswap (Potential $UNI fee sharing, date TBD): Will this trigger a revival of #realyield?

Will other DeFi protocols follow suit? Frax has already enabled fee switching, and AAVE rose after the fee switching proposal.

The fee switching of UNI will have a positive impact on the development of DeFi.