Original author: defioasis

Original editor: Colin Wu

On December 7th, the well-known crypto venture capital firm a16z released a list of exciting trends in the crypto industry for 2024, including entering a new era of decentralization, reshaping future user experiences, the rise of modular technology stacks, the combination of AI and blockchain, transitioning from "play to earn" to "play and earn," AI becoming game creators, Crypto providing security, making formal verification more accessible, NFTs becoming ubiquitous brand assets, and SNARKs (Succinct Non-interactive Arguments of Knowledge) becoming mainstream.

This article will take stock of projects in the 9 major areas listed by a16z, giving priority to a16z investment projects, and selecting them based on comprehensive considerations such as the current status of the project, financing situation, and personal understanding.

Entering a new era of decentralization

Combining the "living laboratory" of Web3 over the past few years, more practices related to decentralization have begun to emerge, including decentralized models that can adapt to applications with richer features, DAOs adopting Machiavellian principles to design more effective decentralized governance models.

PartyDAO

Party allows users to create on-chain groups on the Ethereum network, where they can initiate crowdfunding, on-chain voting and authorization, use the group as an individual address to execute Ethereum transactions, and even play on-chain games collectively. According to official data, there are currently over 9,000 groups created on Party, with 55,000 participants' wallets, facilitating over 10,000 ETH in transaction volume. Party itself also operates in a decentralized manner as PartyDAO.

PartyDAO completed a $16.4 million financing round led by a16z on June 10, 2022, with participants including Dragonfly and Uniswap Ventures.

FingerprintsDAO

Fingerprints is a community and platform for digital art, with a shared national treasury and a highly valuable NFT collection curated by a community curation committee. Fingerprints operates in the form of a DAO, and any user can join and become a member by obtaining 5,000 PRINTS Tokens or 1 Voxelglyph NFT. Members can gain economic exposure to the collection, benefitting if the value of the collection rises, interact with cutting-edge blockchain artists, collectors, and curators, and participate in governance through proposals and voting. FingerprintsDAO showcased the work "Terra0" at the Dubai Art Fair in 2022 and collaborated with the German car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz to launch the Maschine NFT in June of this year.

Fingerprints completed a round of financing with a16z's participation in September 2021, but the amount and valuation were not disclosed; the current market value of PRINTS is $9.1 million, but trading is scarce.

Reshaping future user experiences

Developers are actively building front-end UX that can reshape crypto applications, such as simplifying user login application keys, programmable and easily managed smart accounts, embedded wallets, multi-party computation (MPC), and advanced RPC endpoints.

DynamicLabs

Dynamic is a multi-chain identity verification and authorization platform, featuring embedded wallets, Crypto-Native login, profiles and multi-chain wallets, as well as authorization and authentication. In addition, Dynamic also provides a customizable integrated service that can place crypto wallet technology in the background for novice users, or in the foreground for Web3 native users.

Dynamic Labs completed a $13.5 million financing round led by a16z and Founders Fund on December 13, 2022, with a total cumulative financing of $21 million.

Pimlico

Pimlico is an infrastructure platform for building ERC-4337 smart accounts, providing developers with validators, payment verifiers, ERC-20 payments, and other functions. In November of this year, Pimlico became the first platform to integrate with the ERC-4337 smart account of the multi-signature contract Safe, and serves as a Bundle within the Safe ecosystem. Pimlico is now one of the largest bundlers in the ERC-4337 account abstraction for processing user operations.

Pimlico completed a $4.2 million seed round of financing led by a16z on November 7, 2022, with a total cumulative financing of $5.8 million.

Rise of modular technology stacks

The greatest advantage of open-source modular technology stacks is that they unleash innovation without permission, allow participants to specialize, and incentivize more competition.

StackrLabs

Stackr is a modular rollup SDK that introduces micro-rollups, allowing various functions in dApps to be developed, optimized, and maintained as independent state machines. Stackr Labs is also developing pre-built state machines and cross-chain modules to make it easier for micro-rollups in different language environments to interact. Some examples and applications include games, databases and cloud services, oracles and real-world data, off-chain multi-node networks, and social algorithms.

Stackr Labs completed a $5.5 million seed round of financing led by Archetype on November 9, 2022, with participation from a16z CCS; the project also made it to the a16z Crypto Startup School 2023 in May of this year.

Celestia

Celestia is a modular blockchain that introduces new features for data availability collection, aiming to achieve breakthroughs in scalability, flexibility, and interoperability. The Celestia mainnet went live on October 31, and rollups and other modular public chains can use Celestia to achieve data availability and consensus. The data availability layer of Celestia has been integrated with Arbitrum Orbit and Polygon CDK.

Celestia Labs completed a $55 million financing round led by Bain Capital Crypto and Polychain Capital on October 20, 2022, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and Jump Crypto; the total cumulative financing is now $56.5 million. The current market value of Celestia TIA is $2 billion.

Combining AI and blockchain

Decentralized open-source crypto networks will democratize AI innovation and make it more secure for users.

Gensyn

The Gensyn network is a machine learning computing protocol that claims to unite computing resources worldwide into a global supercluster that can be accessed by anyone at any time. Gensyn plans to use blockchain to decentralize computing resources and use token trading for processor cycles to reduce costs and achieve trustless free access.

Gensyn completed a $43 million Series A financing round led by a16z on June 12, 2022, with a total cumulative financing of $49.5 million.

Fetchai

Fetch.ai's core is a decentralized autonomous AI agent network that provides infrastructure for building intelligent, sponsored services. Fetch.ai offers an intelligent wallet as a machine learning platform and AI agent-based trading tool, and has integrated with OpenAI's GPT API; it can also serve as the off-chain layer of an L1 network.

Fetch.ai completed a $40 million investment from DWF Labs on March 29th of this year; received a $10 million commitment of support from the crypto exchange Bitget on April 27th, and listed on Launchpad. Currently, Fetch.ai's FET market value is $650 million.

Transitioning from play to earn to play and earn

What the industry truly needs are games that are both fun and provide more value to players. P2E will transition to Play-and-Earn, creating a significant distinction between gaming and "work."

EthXY

EthXY is a Telegram-based one-click poker MMORPG game with PvP and poker combat mechanics. The game is played on the Base network, and players can earn loot through various incentive structures. According to official data, EthXY attracted a betting volume of 1,060 ETH (over $2 million) in the first two weeks of its launch, with 30,000 matches played between players; over 3,000 battles were executed in the past 24 hours.

EthXY completed a $1.6 million pre-seed round of financing on November 15th of this year, with participation from a16z CSS23 accelerator program; the current market value of the game token SEXY is approximately $6.5 million.

ProofofPlay

Proof of Play is a blockchain gaming startup aiming to create fun full-chain games. Proof of Play has launched the beta version of its first on-chain role-playing game, Pirate Nation, featuring competitions, PvE and PvP, customizable characters, and islands. The Pirate NFTs are based on Ethereum, and the game is built on Arbitrum Nova.

Proof of Play completed a $33 million seed round of financing led by Greenoaks and a16z on September 21st of this year.

AI becoming game creators, Crypto providing security

AI generates legends, terrains, narratives, and logic for games, while Crypto provides the ability to understand, diagnose, and punish AI when issues arise.

PahdoLabs

Pahdo Labs is a game studio that is building the anime-style action role-playing game Halcyon Zero and launching a UGC platform. Pahdo Labs democratizes anime game creation, allowing players to create unique anime-style MODs and worlds using generative AI tools.

Pahdo Labs completed a $15 million financing round led by a16z on September 12th of this year, with a total cumulative financing of $17.5 million.

CCPGames

CCP Games is an independent game developer founded in 1997, and in May 2003, it launched the sci-fi space epic MMO EVE Online, which has won numerous awards. CCP Games is developing a new AAA-level blockchain game set in the Eve Online universe, using smart contracts and blockchain technology to create new relationships between virtual worlds and players. A player-run organization in Eve Online, Neural Nexus, has appointed ChatGPT as the new leader, giving GPT-4 decision-making power to enjoy long-term development and reduce reliance on a single leader.

CCP Games completed a $40 million financing round led by a16z on March 21st of this year.

Making formal verification more accessible

In software development, especially in smart contract development, there is a need for more accessible formal verification methods to minimize the occurrence of security incidents.

Buildspace

Buildspace is a crypto developer community that provides training courses for Web3 developers through live streaming and a platform for Web3 developers to interact. The current courses offered include Solidity, Ethereum NFT, Solana Web3 App, and more. In July of this year, Buildspace also opened the first Buildspace campus in San Francisco, where students can freely build anything they want.

Buildspace completed a $10 million financing round led by a16z on November 18, 2022, with participation from Y Combinator and Solana Ventures.

Convex

Convex is a global state management platform for full-stack TypeScript and Web3 developers. As a developer, you can interact with shared states using JavaScript or TypeScript functions and bind that state to a reactive application.

Convex completed a $26 million Series A financing round led by a16z on July 4, 2022, with General Partner Martin Casado joining the Convex board.

NFTs becoming ubiquitous brand assets

More and more well-known brands have brought digital assets to mainstream consumers in the form of NFTs. With custodial wallets and low transaction costs on L2, conditions are created for NFTs to become digital brand assets for a wider range of companies and communities.

Sound.xyz

Sound.xyz is a music NFT platform aiming to become the new home for internet music discovery and is open to all artists. Sound is also creating a platform to fix the music streaming economy, allowing artists to earn from their music and retain 100% ownership and control. According to official data, Sound has brought in over $5.5 million in revenue for a selected group of creators in less than a year.

Sound.xyz completed a $20 million financing round led by a16z on July 12, 2022, with a total cumulative financing of $25 million.

ReadyPlayerMe

Ready Player Me is a metaverse identity platform where users can create virtual identities through NFTs in the metaverse, and developers can integrate the platform into their own applications. The platform states that over 3,000 partners, including VRChat, Somebody Space, and Nike's NFT studio RTFKT, have integrated the Ready Player Me platform.

Ready Player Me completed a $56 million Series B financing round led by a16z on August 23, 2022, with a total cumulative financing of $69 million.

SNARKs (Succinct Non-interactive Arguments of Knowledge) becoming mainstream

SNARKs (Succinct Non-interactive Arguments of Knowledge) allow for the creation of "cryptographic receipts" by untrusted "provers" for certain computational workloads, and cannot be forged.

zkSync

zkSync is an L2 protocol based on the ZK rollup architecture. All funds are held by smart contracts on the main chain, while computation and storage are done off-chain. Validator transactions are bundled into a single block and submitted with a cryptographic commitment (i.e., a root hash) to the smart contract on the Ethereum mainnet, along with a cryptographic proof (a SNARK) proving that this new state is indeed the result of applying some correct transactions to the old state.

The development team behind zkSync, Matter Labs, completed a $200 million Series C financing round led by Blockchain Capital and Dragonfly on November 16, 2022, with participation from a16z, among others. The total cumulative financing for zkSync/Matter Labs is now $258 million.

MantaPacific

Manta Pacific is an L2 network supported by Manta Network that provides programmable ZK and allows for the development of ZK applications using Solidity. Additionally, Manta Pacific has launched Universal Circuits 2.0, improving the developer experience for deploying EVM-native ZK applications and providing ZK as a service. Manta Pacific also recently launched New Paradigm, introducing yield tokens and composability for L2.

Developer p0x labs of Manta Pacific completed a $25 million financing round led by Polychain Capital and Sequoia Capital on July 19, 2022, with a total cumulative financing of $31.6 million.

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