The rate at which new tokens are issued has slowed down, but I believe it will accelerate soon because
The market is slowly recovering.
Many projects can no longer be delayed.
These projects will test the waters and pave the way for others. In this post, I want to highlight the protocols that frequently appear in my X stream. However, it seems that not everyone is familiar with what they do.
I wrote a similar blog post about the 7 Big Projects a year ago and plan to post these more frequently, so feel free to subscribe.
So if you’re one of those people on X who waits for hyped projects to launch tokens and airdrops (but doesn’t really understand what they do), then this post is for you.
Initia - Multichain Eden
Initia is the first sale conducted by Cobie’s Echonomist Group on its Echo fundraising platform.
Cobie’s team has only raised three funding rounds, which may make things bullish. The mainnet and airdrop should be live soon (although it seems to be delayed until April).
If there’s one word you should know about Initia, it’s “interwoven.”
Initia is L1 that integrates L2 to create a modular network of application chains.
It sounds like Ethereum, but Initia solves the problem that ETH maxis don’t like about Ethereum.
Unlike Ethereum L2, which operates in isolation, Initia fuses Layer 1 with Layer 2, creating an intertwined ecosystem. They call these L2s Minitias . They are also similar to Avalanche subnets (recently renamed L1).
Unlike Ethereum but similar to Avalanche, OPinit Stack supports EVM, MoveVM, and WasmVM, so developers can use whichever language they see fit.
This is likely to make ETH bulls salivate. Initia’s Enshrined liquidity allows staking of INIT tokens alone or approved INIT-X LP tokens (paired with INIT) to earn rewards in the Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) mechanism.
Fixed liquidity is a good representation of Ponzi token economics, which forces 50% or more of INIT to be used as a pairing token for all ecosystem tokens. These LP tokens must be whitelisted by governance.
Like Berachain, Initia also has a native dex: InitiaDEX on L1 built with the Move programming language. It is the liquidity center of the Omnitia ecosystem, and from what I understand, most liquidity will flow through InitiaDEX (and through the mandatory INIA pool) even between L2s.
There are more features to Initia, like a native bridge (confusingly named Minitswap) and a vested interest program (aggregators are rewarded for creating applications and new use cases for INIT), but the above 4 features stand out to me.
Initia truly takes what Ethereum natives demand of Ethereum and puts it into one product, making it an intertwined ecosystem.
Tokens and Financing
Tokenomics isn’t fully launched yet. Initia shared only four details about it:
50% of supply is used for VIP and Enshrined Liquidity
No unlocking of staking rewards for insiders
Community round discounts of approximately 30%.
15% to investors.
We can look forward to airdrops, as Initia co-founder Zon said, "Vesting unlock is a gift. It prevents you from giving up too early and forces you to believe."
In September 2024, Zon also shared with Block Initia’s last round of Series A financing, raising $14 million from companies such as Theory Ventures, Delphi Ventures, and Hack VC, with an FDV of $350 million.
The testnet is incentivized, so feel free to visit the official testnet website to earn testnet tokens and play a role in its ecosystem. All information can be found on the testnet page here.
As usual, I don’t have much expectations for testnet activity.
Overall, the ecosystem is well built. The key question remains: Will builders and users choose to participate in it?
Fogo — The Fastest L1 Blockchain
Fogo, another project that conducted a token sale within Cobie’s own Echo Group, raised $8 million at a $100 million valuation.
Fogo uses Firedancer, a highly optimized Solana validator client created by Jump Crypto, as the only execution client on the network.
It’s not even live on Solana yet. Solana will soon benefit from the Firedancer client, but not all validators will be able to switch to it right away. This means the network speed is limited by the slowest node.
As Fogo co-founder Doug Colkitt puts it: “It’s like owning a Ferrari and driving it in New York City traffic.”
Under optimal conditions, their theoretical speed is up to 1 million transactions per second with a block time of 20 milliseconds , but Fogo's live developer network reaches about 54,000 TPS . In comparison, Solana's current theoretical limit is 65k TPS, but it currently reaches 4.3k.
The MegaETH testnet pushes 20k TPS with 10ms block time.
In contrast, the TradFi system can handle over 100,000 operations per second with sub-second latency.
The Fogo team believes that decentralized networks must match institutional-grade use cases such as high-frequency trading and instant payments.
It runs the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) , which means developers can easily migrate Solana applications, tools, and infrastructure to Fogo without making any changes. Expect a series of forks with new shiny tokens (Jupiter, Kamino, Pumpfun, etc.).
Apparently, not everyone in the Solana ecosystem is happy about this.
Notably, Fogo’s contributors include members of Douro Labs, the team behind the Pyth oracle network, which itself is closely associated with Jump Crypto.
Other notable features:
Multi-Local Consensus (“Follow the Sun”): Fogo groups validators into geographic “regions” that work semi-independently. Control rotates to the next region periodically, preventing any single location from dominating. This means consensus can be reached faster during normal operations because messages don’t always have to travel across the globe. You can read more about this here.
It will initially have a select group of validators (20-50) at launch.
Fee abstraction: Transaction fees can be paid in any token.
Tokens and Financing
Fogo raised about $5.5 million in a seed round led by Distributed Global, with participation from CMS Holdings. This was the top of the $8 million round raised by Echo Group.
Devnet will be live by the end of 2024, testnet will be launched soon, and mainnet will be launched in mid-2025. There is not much information about the token or airdrop at the moment.
Succinct — Software that Proves the World
“Cryptocurrency has failed in its mission.
We were promised a transparent, verifiable, trustless, globally coordinated system. Instead, we got bridge hacks, multi-signature L2s without fraud proofs, and a committee of 21 validators controlling billions of dollars.”
This is the main problem that Succinct is solving.
“ZK proofs are one of the most critical technologies for blockchain scaling, interoperability, and privacy, but are too complex for most developers today.”
It’s hard to get excited about ZK proofs right now, but Succinct caught my attention with its stellar marketing campaign and testnet/website dashboard as a MacOS interface.
You can play games and earn points.
Anyway. The problem we are facing now is:
Each project must build its own proof system (e.g. zkSync and Scroll use zero-knowledge to scale, but the infrastructure is fragmented.)
Many rely on centralized providers to generate proofs.
· This is not only costly , but also slows down innovation .
As a result, succinct ZKPs — a technique for cryptographically proving authenticity without revealing data — are difficult to implement due to fragmented infrastructure and high costs.
Instead of every project reinventing the wheel, Succinct provides a shared proof generation marketplace. Developers can focus on building applications (rollups, bridges, oracles) while outsourcing proof creation to the network.
Notable partners: Polygon, Celestia, Avail, Gnosis.
But the use cases are much more diverse, such as private voting systems or anonymous transactions. Or you can prove that you have money in your wallet without actually showing how much money is in it.
It’s a technical project, but one that could be the glue that decentralizes and protects the most fragile crypto projects.
Their testnet "Level 1: Trust Crisis" was launched two months ago. You can earn stars by generating zero-knowledge proofs. You need a $10 USDC deposit to cover the proof generation cost. But to get an invitation code, you need to farm it on platforms such as X, Discord, etc.
I think this will be standard for an airdrop, but details about the tokens are not yet public.
Succinct raised $55 million, led by Paradigm, with participation from Robot Ventures, Bankless Ventures, Geometry, and others.
When the mainnet goes live, TGE is expected to come soon.
Resolv - A truly effective Delta Neutral Stablecoin
Many now believe that the next wave of Altcoin gains will be driven by increased institutional adoption, especially of stablecoins.
The problem is that the main beneficiaries of stablecoin adoption appear to be institutions and stablecoin issuers, while retail investors may only benefit a little.
I’ve written a few thoughts on protocols that could benefit from stablecoin adoption, but I’d like to add one here — Resolv.
If you know how Ethena works, you already have a good basic understanding of Resolv.
The core concept of both is the same - using crypto collateral plus short-term perpetual hedging to create stablecoins. However, Resolv’s architecture and approach are different:
First is the dual-token model vs. the single-token model: Ethena has a single-token model (USDe) where all risks and rewards flow to stablecoin holders and are managed behind the scenes by the protocol’s reserves.
Resolv uses a dual token model (USR + RLP) that clearly isolates risks into separate tokens.
· USR: Like USDe, USR hedges the ETH price by short futures, using a delta-neutral strategy to maintain its peg. You can stake USR to earn yield, converting it to stUSR, similar to a savings account.
RLP acts as insurance for USR, absorbing losses to keep USR stable (e.g. when funding rates are negative). RLP holders take on risk in exchange for higher returns. The value of RLP fluctuates with the performance of the protocol, acting as a buffer: it grows with profits and shrinks with losses.
This setup allows risk-tolerant users to earn more while protecting stablecoin users from market risk. As of this writing, the APR for USR is 4.3% and the APR for RLP is 6.7%.
While not terribly high, the airdropped points farming gave Resolv a TVL of $636.9 million. Not bad.
Secondly, Resolv’s philosophy is to maintain 100% cryptocurrency support. All collateral is ETH (BTC support has just been announced), and no RWA is involved.
Initially, Ethena also only supported cryptocurrencies, but later launched a secondary stablecoin, USDtb, which is 90% backed by BlackRock’s Tokenized Money Market Fund (BUIDL).
For Resolv, USDtb is somewhat of an insurance token similar to USR, designed to stabilize USDe during bear markets by providing traditional asset yields when cryptocurrency yields fall.
So you could say Resolv is more “crypto-native” and decentralized in spirit, although Ethena’s strategy could gain additional stability by introducing centralized assets.
Tokens and Financing
Resolv has not officially announced the details of its funding, but backers include Delphi Labs, Daedalus, and No Limit Holdings. They are preparing to launch community funding through Legion soon.
Resolv has been running a points program since September 2024. You can still join by depositing stablecoins and earning points.
After making a deposit, you can maximize your points through Pendle pools or other strategies.
The token $RESOLV is expected to be launched in early 2025.
Snapchain — Probably the largest consumer L1
My biggest concern is whether Fogo, Initia, and other chains that are launching will be adopted? What killer apps will be launched on them? As Kyle said:
“General-purpose blockchains will die. Each blockchain will need a specific use case, and they will be defined by what is built on them.”
This is where L1 Snapchain built for the Farcaster social network comes in.
Snapchain is necessary because decentralized social networks have trouble staying in sync and providing real-time updates as they scale. Lens will use zkSync technology, but Farcaster is developing its own.
“For example, Twitter has 200 million daily users and processes 10,000 messages per second, so the state’s data could grow by 1TB to 10TB per day.”
Farcaster’s current system works at a small scale, but breaks down as the number of users and nodes grows. Snapchain will fix that in a decentralized way.
At launch, it should support 9k+ TPS, thus supporting 2 million daily users (currently DAU is around 50k).
I won’t go into too much technical detail, but there are two exciting parts:
First, delete the data (prune), haha. On the blockchain, most data needs to be kept forever, but what if you post a meme and immediately regret it? It has to disappear! Forever.
So, on Snapchain, old data (posts, likes, follows) can be deleted once it is no longer needed.
This is important because users pay a $2 or $3 per year fee to get 500 tx/hour and a storage limit of about 10,000 tx.
So if you delete old transactions, you open up storage space for new transactions (or you pay more fees).
The second cool part is sharding. Remember, Ethereum considered sharding before moving to layer 2 scaling.
Imagine putting all social media transactions (likes, posts, etc.) on-chain. That's millions of transactions per day. If every node had to store and process everything, it would lag. Every full node would need to process every transaction, even if it wouldn't affect them. This is fine for money and smart contracts, but it doesn't scale well for real-time social.
Snapchain solves this problem by making each user completely independent (when you register on Farcaster you get an ID number, and if you have the lowest ID number, it's bragging rights). Your posts will not affect my account.
So Snapchain spreads users across multiple shards (which is inspired by the Near model, by the way). Each shard only handles its users. This means more users = more shards = higher throughput.
To keep everything in sync, there is one final layer: the main chain that bundles the shards and publishes global blocks.
Ethereum can’t do this easily. Its transactions rely on shared state — smart contracts, tokens, balances. This makes account-level sharding difficult.
Snapchain works because social actions are simple. They only affect the sender.
There is more to it, which you can read here, but I like Farcaster and Snapchain because it builds the use case first and then adds blockchain to it.
It works well for Hyperliquid, and even with 50k DAU and 900k total users, Farcaster is still one of the top consumer apps.
Tokens and Financing
TLDR: Genesis block is live, mainnet is expected to go live on April 15, 2025. So soon.
I believe that once Snapchain is live and Farcaster is ready to scale, Coinbase x Farcaster will start announcing integrations with Coinbase Wallet.
This is a really big deal. Social media info on Coinbase wallet? Seriously.
However, I am not sure when the token will be launched, the team has been silent on this, but some rumors and funding announcements may mean it is coming. Snapchain itself is a technology component, not a separate entity that raises funds. The development of Snapchain is funded by Merkle Manufactory, the company that built the Farcaster protocol.
Most notably, in May 2024, they announced a $150 million funding round led by Paradigm, with participation from other major investors such as a16z crypto, Haun Ventures, USV, Variant, and Standard Crypto.
Bonus 2 projects for you: Eclipse and Atlas
I originally planned to write about the 7 major TGEs and protocols, but this post is too long. I always get carried away (often deleting 30% of the content before posting!)
Eclipse and Atlas are two other SVM (Solana VM) chains on Fogo.
Eclipse is an Ethereum L2, but it uses SVM instead of EVM, and uses Celestia for DA. It is already live, but the total locked value is only $57 million. As Kyle (the above tweet) said, this shows how difficult it is to differentiate from other general chains.
SVM alone is not sufficient to distinguish other L2.
The token appears to be confirmed as being under the ticker ES:
E-Ethereum
· S-Solana
Atlas is another L2 SVM based on Ethereum, but built for on-chain order books, margin systems, and high-frequency trading. So it needs speed! Testnet is live now.
Since I know you want to get back to surfing on X, here's some more information on Eclipse and Atlas from Blockworks.
Welcome to join the BlockBeats official community:
Telegram subscription group: https://t.me/theblockbeats
Telegram group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App
Official Twitter account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia
