Original Author | Beehive
Compilation of the original text | Baize Research Institute
The L1 battle is no longer a new concept for crypto investors. Still, as old L1s continue to be refined and new ones emerge, investors who don't keep up with the narrative may be thrown off the wave of development.
The first L1 battle
In 2018, when I first entered the crypto market, an OG told me, "Invest in ETH, its price has been cut in half, and the bottom has been reached," which is also my opportunity to enter the market. At that time, projects such as Ethereum were not called L1, but smart contract platforms.
During this period, many smart contract platforms such as Cardano, NEO (known as "Chinese Ethereum"), Tron, EOS and Monero - were created to solve Ethereum's scalability problems (transaction speed + transaction fees) Therefore, they are also dubbed "ETH killers" by investors. However, most of the "ETH killers" no longer exist or are rarely heard of.
The Second L1 Battle
The second L1 battle took place in the most recent market cycle (2020-2024), and the main task is to solve the scaling problem of Ethereum. Although the goal is the same, this war seems to be more diverse than the war in the previous cycle.
This battle focuses on underlying blockchains with the following characteristics:
Multichain blockchains: Cosmos, Polkadot, and Avalanche.
Monolithic Blockchains: Solana, Near Protocol, Fantom, Celo,…
Looking back at the previous two L1 battles, we can find that although the L1 narrative is a relatively new concept, it has remained attractive to investors since its emergence.
However, the manifestation of the next generation of L1 items will be larger and more powerful than the previous two generations of L1 items.
Therefore, I predict that projects such as Sui, Aptos, Aleo, Celestia, and Monad will lead the next L1 war in the next bull market.
Which projects will lead the next L1 battle?
1. Aptos
Aptos, one of the latest L1s, has completed token distribution via retroactive AirDrop. Users who minted NFTs on the Aptos testnet received an average of $3,000 worth of APT token AirDrop.
Aptos' scaling solution
Aptos uses the Block-STM algorithm and the BFT consensus mechanism to implement network transactions, aiming to solve the expansion problem and avoid repeating the mistakes of Solana's repeated network resets. The parallel processing mechanism of the Aptos network can execute a large number of transactions simultaneously, resulting in a network speed of 160,000 TPS. In addition to the Move language built on Facebook's Diem, Aptos can also use the Rust language to build smart contracts.
The state of the Aptos ecosystem
After the introduction of APT tokens and a massive AirDrop to the community, the number of projects in the Aptos ecosystem skyrocketed. This shows that Aptos is off to a good start. However, most of the early ecological projects are of poor quality, and quite a few of them have defrauded users of funds.
Still, the future of the Aptos ecosystem remains promising for several reasons:
Strong support from Binance & BNB Chain: Aptos is the first blockchain that PancakeSwap expanded, showing that Binance’s support for Aptos has gone beyond strategic investment.
Ecological highlight projects such as Thala Labs, Pontem, Aries Market, Totuga Finance and Martian Wallet have successfully completed financing. This proves that VCs continue to bet on key components of the Aptos ecosystem.
Additionally, adding support for Rust and many other well-known programming languages can help the Aptos ecosystem grow stronger.
Despite the small number of quality projects in the Aptos ecosystem, Aptos has had a relatively positive start and made a stronger impression than Sui in the long run, which is a positive sign for the ecosystem .
team and investors
There's no denying the talent of the Aptos development team who have toiled at Facebook and built Diem.
Even after the Mainnet went live, the project raised hundreds of millions of dollars and reached a valuation of $4 billion.
evaluate
Aptos solves the scalability problem of Ethereum in the execution phase from a technical perspective.
The Aptos ecosystem is in its early stages with few high-quality projects, but the future is still promising.
2. Sui
Unlike Aptos, Sui sparked controversy when it launched on the Mainnet because it did not offer token AirDrop to testnet users. Instead, testnet users are only whitelists to buy SUI tokens at $0.03, which equates to a $300 million valuation.
Sui's solution
Sui is a monolithic blockchain, similar to Solana, Fantom or Near Protocol. However, Sui and Aptos are very similar in that, unlike Solana, they choose to scale horizontally rather than vertically.
However, Aptos uses parallel execution to settle multiple transactions at once, while Sui goes in a different direction. The Narwhal-Tusk consensus algorithm is a key component of Sui's solution to the scalability problem, minimizing the communication required between validators to process transactions for lower latency.
Therefore, Sui's TPS is comparable to or even higher than that of Aptos, without the need for Solana's standard nodes. It can also be said that Sui partially solves the trade-off between scalability, security and decentralization of the blockchain.
The development status of the Sui ecosystem
Sui's ecosystem is still in the early stages of infrastructure development, so it has received little attention. Typically, a new L1 takes a year to build infrastructure components such as wallets, Cross-chain bridges, oracles, and APIs before the ecosystem can enter a stage of sustainable growth.
team and investors
Similar to the Aptos development team, most of the Mysten Lab development team responsible for building the Sui blockchain came from the Diem project. However, compared to the Aptos team, the number of Diem developers in the Sui Blockchain development team is much higher.
evaluate
At present, it is impossible to accurately predict Sui's future, because the most important factor is L1's own development strategy. But compared to its rival Aptos, Sui's development team has more creativity in solving transaction problems. Regarding the scalability problem, Sui's solution is safer and more practical.
3. Monads
Monad is a new L1 that has recently attracted attention due to "AirDrop speculation" due to preparations for a testnet launch.
Monad's solution
Unlike Sui and Aptos, Monad is an EVM blockchain with a Proof-of-stake(PoS) consensus mechanism and up to 10,000 TPS. So, what makes Monad transactions so fast?
Similar to Aptos, Monads employ parallel execution of transactions.
The state of development of the Monad ecosystem
Monad is currently still in the research and development stage and is preparing to launch a testnet version in the near future. Therefore, there are currently no participants in the Monad ecosystem.
team and investors
Monad's development team has worked for TradFi giant Jump Trading for over 7 years. In addition, Monad has successfully raised $19 million from Dragonfly Capital, Lemniscap, Shima Capital, Palceholder and many other VCs.
evaluate
It is difficult to evaluate the Monad at the moment, but based on the limited information currently available, at least the potential of the development team can be verified by raising funds from many large VCs.
4. Aleo
Aleo is a new L1 that aims to provide decentralized and fully private applications to all Web3 users through Zero-knowledge Proof(ZKP) technology.
Aleo's solution
According to the Aleo documentation, the platform does not place much emphasis on scalability, but Aleo hopes to provide privacy to all platform users through ZKP technology capabilities.
The state of development of the Aleo ecosystem
The Aleo ecosystem is in the early stages of development, some ecological projects such as Leo Wallet, VolcaniX, Nucleo, Demox Labs... We still need a lot of time to follow up the future Aleo ecosystem. At present, Aleo is still in the test network, and the launch time of the Mainnet has not yet been announced.
team and investors
Aleo has managed to raise a whopping $298 million in total from VCs like a16z, Coinbase Ventures, Placeholder, Polychain Capital, etc... although Aleo's development team isn't particularly impressive. Clearly, VCs have information that we haven't discovered yet.
evaluate
We currently lack sufficient information to evaluate Aleo and additional observation time is required. With so much funding and attention for a privacy project, maybe the U.S. government might stop Aleo, so if that happens, will Aleo adjust its goals?
5. Celestia
Celestia is the crypto industry's first comprehensive modular blockchain, so even though it hasn't raised as much funding as Aptos or Sui, Celestia still has a lot of interest in the crypto community.
Celestia's solution
Traditional blockchains typically integrate functions such as consensus, settlement, data availability, and execution into a single architecture. However, as the complexity and requirements of blockchain applications increase, a single architecture may not be able to meet the requirements of different scenarios. And Celestia, as a modular blockchain, separates execution, consensus, and data availability.
Celestia's model is similar to Ethereum + Rollup L2. After the completion of the Ethereum 2.0 roadmap, Ethereum will also become a fully functional modular blockchain. Obviously, modular blockchain will be an important trend in the future encryption market.
The state of development of the Celestia ecosystem
Celestia is still in the research and development stage, and the ecosystem has not yet formed.
team and investors
The co-founder of the project is also a senior developer of Cosmos, while other team members also have a good "pedigree".
evaluate
Compared to Aptos and Sui, Celestia has grown much more slowly because of the complexity of the technology they are trying to develop.
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