I. Industry Insights
In terms of macroeconomic regulation, the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut has brought macroeconomic benefits, from which major DeFi protocols have benefited. The Federal Reserve significantly cut interest rates by 50 basis points in September, reducing the federal funds rate to between 4.75% and 5%, leading to short-term volatility, but the long-term outlook for BTC remains stable. As the global financial system's dependence on monetary expansion deepens, BTC, as an asset independent of central bank policies, continues to gain appeal, with spot ETFs seeing a cumulative net inflow of $21.3 billion.
Ethereum mainnet data remains stable, and the Pectra upgrade is expected to enhance the network's functionality, security, and efficiency. The average daily active users on-chain is 480,000, with 1.2 million transactions per day, and the combined utilization rate of USDC, USDT, and Dai on major lending platforms has soared to 87%, reaching the highest level since late June 2024. As DeFi yields rise, interest rate cuts are expected to revive the crypto lending market and drive on-chain activity.
At the public chain ecosystem level, data performance of major public chains represented by Sui has been impressive, with more innovations yet to be explored. The TVL has exceeded $1.4 billion, with DEX daily trading volume reaching $180 million, both setting new highs. The TVL of the NAVI Protocol-led liquidity protocols has exceeded $500 million, and the leading DEX Cetus ranks among the top 10 in terms of DEX trading volume, with weekly trading volume exceeding $1 billion. Trading volumes of mainstream SUI ecosystem assets have been steadily growing, and trading volumes of memecoins and community assets have also surged significantly. Therefore, we are also optimistic about projects like Monad, representing parallel blockchains and their ecosystems, such as aPriori.
The concept of "super cycles" of memes has brought more attention, introducing new variables for AI development, and entertainment-oriented IPs are attracting more attention. The current total market cap of AI memecoins has exceeded $2 billion, with average trading volume more than 5 times higher than last year. The hype around Terminals of Truth and GOAT has brought new use cases for AI-generated content, meme culture, and speculative market behavior, driving Solana to over 4.5 million on-chain transactions per day and 6.9 million daily active users, with meme-related DEXs setting new fee highs.
II. Overview of OKX Ventures' Q3 Investments
In Q3, OKX Ventures' investment focus covered the Bitcoin ecosystem, Ethereum and other Layer 1 networks, as well as AI and blockchain data platforms, with investments in projects such as zkLink, Monad, aPriori, Space and Time, and Prodia. The details of these projects are as follows.
1. zkLink
zkLink is a decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure based on zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology, aiming to solve the problems of liquidity fragmentation and high cross-chain transaction costs in the current blockchain ecosystem. It achieves seamless connectivity and liquidity aggregation between Ethereum and its Layer 2 networks by building an aggregated Layer 3 zkEVM network (zkLink Nova).
As the first aggregated Layer 3 zkEVM network, zkLink Nova solves the liquidity fragmentation issue on Ethereum L2, allowing DApps to be deployed seamlessly across multiple L2s. It provides a customized scaling engine for high-performance ZK applications, supporting various use cases, including spot trading, derivatives trading, and Non-Fungible Token (NFT) trading.
The main problems this project solves:
- Cross-chain liquidity aggregation and seamless multi-chain interaction: zkLink connects different L1 and L2 networks, simplifying the cross-chain transaction process and allowing users to freely trade across different blockchains without frequent network or wallet switching.
- Rich ecosystem projects: zkLink has collaborated with multiple projects, forming a thriving ecosystem network that attracts a large number of users to participate in its DeFi activities.
- Innovative technical solutions: Combining ZK-Rollup and oracle networks, zkLink provides an efficient and secure cross-chain interaction mechanism, greatly improving the integration efficiency of the ecosystem.
- Enhancing user experience and driving the development of the decentralized finance ecosystem, becoming an important bridge connecting different blockchains.
2. Monad
Monad is a Layer 1 blockchain aimed at providing extremely high performance and scalability. It supports 10,000 transactions per second, with a 1-second block time and single-confirmation finality. Monad is Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible, allowing developers to easily migrate and use existing applications and libraries.
Monad's low hardware requirements enable ordinary consumer-grade hardware to run nodes, providing a viable path to decentralization. Additionally, the design of MonadDB stores most of the state on SSDs rather than RAM, reducing node running costs and improving scalability.
Project Highlights:
- High Performance: Monad provides 10,000 transactions per second, ensuring a smooth user experience.
- Low Fees: Near-zero transaction fees, allowing applications to scale significantly.
- Fast Confirmation: 1-second block time and single-confirmation finality, improving transaction efficiency.
- EVM Compatibility: 100% EVM compatible, supporting existing applications in the Ethereum ecosystem.
- Scalable Decentralization: Low hardware requirements enable more users to participate in the network, promoting decentralization.
- Innovative Execution Model: Optimistic parallel execution and asynchronous execution, effectively improving transaction processing capacity.
3. aPriori
aPriori is an MEV infrastructure and liquidity staking protocol built natively on the Monad platform, designed for the era of parallel execution. The project aims to optimize the efficiency of blockchain transaction processing through an innovative block space auction mechanism, reducing the occurrence of MEV-driven spam transactions. aPriori aligns the incentives of block producers with the network's objectives, enhancing user experience and overall network efficiency.
The main problems this project solves:
- Block Space Auction: Due to the limited block space and the monopolistic power of block producers in transaction ordering, aPriori introduces a block space auction mechanism. This mechanism, through competitive bidding, transparently reflects the true economic value of transactions, improving the efficiency of resource allocation.
- Minimizing Spam Transactions: aPriori's auction mechanism, by changing the dominant strategy of searchers, reduces the phenomenon of MEV-driven spam transactions. This design ensures the orderliness and predictability of transaction execution, enhancing the user experience.
- Incentive Compatibility: In the post-MEV era, aPriori's auction mechanism ensures incentive compatibility, ensuring that transaction fees are based on economic value rather than the private assessment of block producers, thereby optimizing the user experience.
- Transparency and Fairness: By introducing competitive bidding, aPriori ensures the transparency of the transaction processing process, reducing the possibility of unfair practices (such as front-running).
4. Space and Time
Space and Time is a decentralized data warehouse designed specifically for blockchain applications. Established in 2022, the project aims to provide a next-generation data platform that meets the needs of decentralized applications (dApps), decentralized finance (DeFi), and other projects requiring powerful analytical capabilities. Space and Time combines enterprise-grade SQL and APIs, allowing users to seamlessly integrate and analyze on-chain and off-chain data within a single query.
Supporting multi-chain operations, Space and Time allows users to easily access and analyze data across multiple blockchains. By introducing SQL Proof technology, Space and Time ensures the security, integrity, and transparency of data, without compromising performance.
- Key features of the project:
- Decentralized Architecture: Space and Time is the first Web3-native data warehouse, fully decentralized, ensuring the security and privacy of user data.
- Enterprise-grade SQL and APIs: Users can leverage familiar SQL commands and tools for querying and loading data, simplifying the data processing workflow.
- Multi-chain Support: The platform allows users to seamlessly access and analyze data across multiple blockchains, enhancing flexibility and scalability.
- SQL Proof Technology: This technology not only safeguards the security of data but also maintains its integrity and transparency, providing users with confidence.
- Real-time Data Processing: Supports high-capacity real-time transaction processing, while leveraging column storage and GPU acceleration for large-scale data set analysis.
- Customizable Dashboards: The platform provides dynamic visualization capabilities, allowing users to customize dashboards according to their brand needs and automatically generate charts and visualizations.
5. Prodia
Prodia is an innovative platform focused on artificial intelligence and distributed cloud computing, aiming to provide image and music generation services through its powerful API. The platform leverages advanced machine learning models, particularly Stable Diffusion technology, to convert text into high-quality images. Additionally, Prodia has built a distributed Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) network to provide efficient cloud computing services at a lower cost, supporting various application scenarios. Prodia not only provides users with advanced artificial intelligence tools, but also drives the innovation and development of cloud computing services.
- The main features of this project:
- AI content generation capability: Prodia provides various models and enables efficient text-to-image conversion through its API, meeting users' needs for high-quality content generation.
- Distributed cloud computing: Utilizing a distributed GPU network, Prodia can provide powerful computing capabilities at a lower cost, adapting to the needs of projects of different scales.
- Diverse application scenarios: The platform is not only applicable to image generation, but also extends to music generation and other fields, providing creators with more flexibility and choices.
- User-friendly API: Prodia's API design is concise and easy to use, allowing developers to quickly integrate its functionalities and improve development efficiency.
- Web3 infrastructure: Combining Web3 technology, Prodia provides decentralized services, enhancing data security and user privacy protection.
III. Conclusion
Based on these changes in Q3, OKX Ventures is very optimistic about the market outlook. Macroeconomically, interest rate cuts as a major positive factor, Ethereum's continuous innovation, on-chain data reaching new highs, the public chain ecosystem represented by SUI, and the cultural innovation brought by Meme have all provided sustained growth momentum for the industry. This quarter, we have focused on projects with strategic potential, not only aligning with market growth opportunities, but also demonstrating unique competitive advantages in their respective fields.
Whether it's in the re-pledging of BTC and DeFi applications, cross-chain liquidity integration, or the improvement of blockchain performance and data processing optimization, these projects are driving technological breakthroughs and the expansion of application scenarios. Furthermore, we remain optimistic about the prospects of AI-generated content and distributed computing, as they will provide new momentum for future industry innovation and development.
OKX Ventures Disclaimer, please refer to https://www.okx.com/zh-hans/learn/okx-disclaimer.
Risk Disclosure and Disclaimer
This article is for reference only. This article only represents the author's views and does not represent the position of OKX or the above-mentioned institutions. This article does not intend to provide (i) investment advice or investment recommendations; (ii) an offer or solicitation to buy, sell or hold digital assets; (iii) financial, accounting, legal or tax advice. We do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of such information. Holding digital assets (including stablecoins and Non-Fungible Tokens) involves high risks and may fluctuate significantly. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for your financial situation. Please consult your legal/tax/investment professionals for your specific situation. Please be responsible for understanding and complying with the relevant applicable laws and regulations in your local area.
