OKX Ventures continued to focus on the industry in April, including the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem, the dynamics of Ethereum ecosystem entrepreneurial projects, and potential progress in Hong Kong and US Ethereum ETFs, and invested in multiple projects.

With the completion of the Bitcoin halving, macroeconomic, financial data, and central bank policies have become important factors affecting the trend of Bitcoin, and the high interest rate environment and low interest rate expectations will continue to affect market trends.

Currently, the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem is still in its early stages, but the infrastructure construction is developing rapidly. Innovations at the Bitcoin layer, represented by Arch, client verification represented by Nervos RGB++, and infrastructure projects represented by Bitlayer and BounceBit for Layer2 solutions have initially taken shape. Industry insiders generally believe that applications within the Bitcoin ecosystem are expected to experience a surge in the future, and the market is expected to see the emergence of DeFi Summer, NFT Summer, and GameFi Summer within the Bitcoin ecosystem.

In addition, the development of the cryptocurrency market infrastructure is showing a diversified trend. Parallel EVM, as a narrative hotspot, has led dozens of public chains to follow the parallel EVM narrative, such as Monad and Aptos. Modular narratives continue to develop, with Movement, Avail, and Staketone completing this round of fundraising in April. In addition, a total of 1 million new tokens were created across the entire network in April, with 640,000 created on Solana and 320,000 created on Base, signaling further development in infrastructure.

In terms of continued growth in the application ecosystem, the gaming ecosystem continues to explode, with high-quality games represented by Matr1x and full-chain games represented by Cellula set to experience a surge. Although the market value of the gaming sector decreased by 30% in April, the daily active user count (wallet count) reached 3 million, setting a new historical high, representing a 16.9% increase from March and indicating an increase in user participation and willingness.

OKX Ventures continued to focus on the industry in April, including the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem, the dynamics of Ethereum ecosystem entrepreneurial projects, and potential progress in Hong Kong and US Ethereum ETFs, and invested in multiple projects.

Bitcoin Ecosystem

Arch Protocol

According to the Arch Protocol whitepaper:

• Project Overview

￮ Arch is a Bitcoin-native application platform designed to launch decentralized finance (DeFi) on the world's most valuable blockchain without relying on bridging technology. Arch expands the programmability of Bitcoin and provides a secure, decentralized execution layer, allowing developers to build complex applications on Bitcoin.

￮ Arch emphasizes not sacrificing the core value of Bitcoin as a non-sovereign currency while expanding its functionality and application scope as much as possible, enhancing the programmability and expanding the application scope of Bitcoin, marking a new stage in the further development of Bitcoin.

• Project Highlights

￮ Bitcoin-native integration, supporting DeFi and NFTs: Arch operates directly on the first layer (Layer 1) of Bitcoin, avoiding the complexity and efficiency issues of traditional second-layer solutions, and directly leveraging the security and liquidity of Bitcoin itself. Developers can create decentralized lending markets, exchanges, and high-end collectibles and NFTs that can be fully stored on the Bitcoin chain, bringing new value and functionality to the Bitcoin ecosystem.

￮ Smart contract functionality: Through zero-knowledge virtual machine (ZKVM), Arch can execute smart contracts, adding unprecedented flexibility and diversity to Bitcoin. This smart contract functionality supports everything from simple asset exchanges to complex financial products.

￮ Decentralized validation network: The core of Arch is its decentralized validation node network, which validates zero-knowledge proofs (ZK Proofs) to ensure the correct execution of transactions and applications. This network structure enhances the platform's security and resistance to censorship, avoiding centralized risks.

￮ Fully on-chain operation: All transactions and state changes executed through the Arch platform are finally confirmed and recorded on the Bitcoin blockchain, maintaining the transparency and immutability of the Bitcoin blockchain.

Bitlayer

According to the Bitlayer whitepaper:

• Project Overview

￮ Bitlayer is a Bitcoin Layer 2 network based on BitVM technology, aiming to introduce scalability to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Bitlayer provides security equivalent to the first layer of Bitcoin and achieves Turing completeness, allowing developers to execute arbitrary computations on Bitcoin.

￮ Bitlayer aims to transform Bitcoin from a pure store of value into a more active and productive asset, while providing fast transaction experiences and low transaction costs.

• Project Highlights

￮ Security: Bitlayer uses a fraud-proof protocol based on BitVM to verify state transitions, ensuring security equivalent to the Bitcoin base layer. By using DLC/BitVM technology, it provides a more secure bridging model for cross-chain asset transfers than MPC-TSS or multi-signature.

￮ Scalability: Bitlayer supports flexible scaling solutions and is committed to expanding the internet and cryptocurrency user base of Bitcoin. Through modular design, Bitlayer can achieve unlimited scalability while ensuring fast transaction confirmation speeds and low transaction costs.

￮ Developer and user-friendly: Bitlayer will initially be compatible with EVM, allowing existing Ethereum ecosystem applications and developers to migrate to Bitlayer at low cost and without extensive modifications. Future support for more virtual machines, such as CairoVM, SolVM, and MoveVM, will provide users with a richer selection of on-chain applications.

BounceBit

According to the BounceBit whitepaper:

• Project Overview

￮ BounceBit is an infrastructure built on BTC for Restaking, protected by Mainnet Digital and Ceffu's regulated custody.

￮ BounceBit Chain is a PoS Layer 1 chain based on Bitcoin Restaking, where validators simultaneously stake BTC and BounceBit's native tokens, using a dual-token system that integrates the security of Bitcoin with full compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

￮ The BounceBit ecosystem has rich infrastructure, such as bridges and oracles, and also ensures security through re-staking BTC. In an innovative structure framework of centralized finance (CeFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi), BounceBit empowers Bitcoin holders to earn income across multiple networks.

• Project Highlights

￮ PoS Layer1: Unlike Layer2 attached to the Bitcoin main chain, BounceBit is self-contained, requiring validators to stake the platform's native tokens and BTC, creating a dual-token security system. This approach not only enhances the network's security but also increases the active role of BTC in network validation, enhancing the intrinsic value of Bitcoin.

￮ Cross-chain interoperability: BounceBit supports interoperability with EVM-compatible chains, diversifying the use cases for staking BTC, such as BTCB (Bitcoin on the BNB chain) and WBTC (Wrapped Bitcoin).

￮ Transparent CeFi providing real income: BounceBit utilizes Mainnet Digital's custody services and Ceffu's MirrorX technology to keep Bitcoin in an on-chain state while ensuring the liquidity and transparency of transactions through a T+1 settlement cycle in centralized exchanges.

UTXO stack

According to the UTXO stack whitepaper:

• Project Overview

• UTXO Stack is committed to expanding the Bitcoin ecosystem, helping project developers to launch BTC Layer2 based on the UTXO architecture with native integration of RGB++ protocol capabilities, enabling seamless interoperability between BTC and Stack parallel Layer2 without the need for cross-chain bridges, and ensuring Layer2 security through staking BTC, CKB, and BTC L1 assets.

• By providing a one-click launch service for UTXO BTC Layer2, UTXO Stack aims to simplify the process of creating application-specific chains while ensuring interoperability with assets such as BTC and CKB without relying on traditional cross-chain bridging technology. The emergence of UTXO Stack responds to the market's demand for higher performance, greater scalability, and lower-cost blockchain solutions.

Zeus Network

According to the Zeus Network whitepaper:

• Zeus Network is dedicated to bringing the next billion users into the Web3 ecosystem. It achieves this by building cross-chain infrastructure using Solana. This is accomplished by developing the Zeus Layer, a pluggable and programmable node network, on the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM). Zeus Network envisions a future where developers can build decentralized applications (dApps) on permissionless cross-chain infrastructure without the need for traditional blockchain bridges.

• The primary mission of Zeus Network is to bring Bitcoin liquidity into Solana through its first dApp, APOLLO. Zeus Network is bridgeless, as liquidity providers on each chain do not receive backflow liquidity on the other chain, and assets provided on each chain are protected by their respective protocols.

• Project Highlights

• Bridgeless cross-chain technology: By innovatively designing a cross-chain solution that does not require traditional blockchain bridges, Zeus Network avoids the security risks of bridges, making cross-chain liquidity more secure. Apollo is the cross-chain bridge between BTC and Solana, bringing Bitcoin liquidity into Solana.

• Leveraging Solana's high performance: By building cross-chain infrastructure on Solana, the fastest, most economical, and performance-optimized blockchain globally, Zeus Network can achieve fast, low-cost cross-chain transactions.

• Pluggable and programmable node network: The Zeus Layer's pluggable and programmable framework allows developers to easily integrate and create dApps that seamlessly interoperate with Bitcoin and multiple future blockchains.

• Security and decentralization: Utilizing advanced encryption technology and fraud-proof mechanisms, along with the decentralized operation of distributed node networks, ensures transaction security and system transparency and fairness.

Infrastructure

Monad

According to the Monad whitepaper:

• Monad is a high-performance Layer1 blockchain compatible with Ethereum, aiming to advance decentralization and scalability boundaries in key areas through optimization. By introducing core technologies such as MonadBFT, Deferred Execution, Parallel Execution, and MonadDb, Monad significantly increases system throughput, achieving a processing speed of 10,000 transactions per second.

• Its comprehensive EVM bytecode compatibility and Ethereum RPC API compatibility ensure that application developers and users can seamlessly migrate existing Ethereum ecosystem tools and dApps to the Monad platform, enjoying more efficient blockchain performance.

• Project Highlights

• Ultra-high performance and processing speed: For blockchain ecosystems requiring large-scale daily active users and highly interactive applications, Monad provides the highest level of performance required to date, achieving processing speeds of 10,000 transactions per second, 1-second block time, and finality.

• Ethereum ecosystem compatibility: Fully compatible with EVM bytecode, allowing Ethereum-developed applications to migrate to Monad without any code modifications; Ethereum RPC API compatibility allows users to seamlessly access Monad using familiar tools such as MetaMask and Etherscan.

• MonadBFT: An improved version of the HotStuff consensus algorithm, implementing an efficient pipelined consensus mechanism.

• Deferred Execution: Significantly improves execution budget by setting up a pipeline between consensus and execution.

• Parallel Execution: Utilizes multi-core processing capabilities to increase execution speed while maintaining transaction result consistency.

• MonadDb: A high-performance state backend storage system optimized for SSD, achieving efficient state updates and caching.

• Low hardware entry requirements and accessibility: Monad maintains reasonable hardware requirements for running nodes, ensuring lower participation thresholds and widespread accessibility.

Aptos

According to the Aptos whitepaper:

• Aptos is a leading Layer1 blockchain in the non-EVM public chain space, using the Move language as a development language. Smart contract execution has always been a bottleneck limiting blockchain throughput, and single-threaded execution severely limits its upper limit. Aptos has developed the Block-STM smart contract parallel execution engine to improve transaction execution efficiency. The core team includes Mo Shaik and Avery Ching, both from the former Meta team, with rich experience in the traditional internet field. Historical investors include A16Z, DragonFly, Brevan Howard, Franklin Templton, Tiger, Hashed, and Multicoin.

• Recently, Aptos Labs has established new partnerships with Microsoft, Brevan Howard, SK Telecom, and Boston Consulting Group to develop Aptos Ascend, a platform aimed at providing institutional clients with on-chain digital asset management, supporting increased liquidity of RWA-type assets globally, and more.

• Project Highlights

• Technological innovation and performance: Aptos is known for its novel technology stack, including AptosBFTv4 consensus mechanism, Quorum Store memory pool protocol, Block-STM parallel execution engine, and its programming language Aptos Move. The combination of these technologies provides Aptos with high throughput and low latency, especially its ability to process 30,000 transactions per second in a test environment and handle over 9 billion transactions during specific periods, demonstrating its outstanding performance.

• Security and scalability: Aptos places special emphasis on security and scalability, enhancing smart contract security using the Aptos Move language and allowing frequent network upgrades for rapid deployment of new technologies and fixes.

• Ecosystem growth and partnerships: Since its launch, Aptos has rapidly developed its ecosystem through key partnerships (including collaborations with Microsoft, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, and other well-known companies), funding programs, and hackathons. The project particularly focuses on expanding its influence in the Asia-Pacific region, establishing partnerships with multiple renowned gaming companies and corporate groups, promoting the development of DeFi, social media, gaming, and NFT applications.

• Market Adoption and Network Activities: Aptos promotes network activities through initiatives such as the Chingari social media platform, Pyth oracle integration, and Graffio's daily public art creation activities, demonstrating strong market adoption. With an average daily transaction volume exceeding 475,000 and over 72,000 daily active addresses, it proves its strong user engagement and network utility.

• Future-Oriented Technology Roadmap: Aptos' future technology roadmap includes plans for storage sharding, aiming to achieve a target of 100,000 to 1 million transactions per second, and developing a new Aptos Move compiler, demonstrating its commitment as an innovative platform to continuously advance to meet the demands of future Web3.

Movement

• Friendly Development Experience: The introduction of MoveVM to Layer2 provides a powerful Fractal translator, converting Solidity smart contracts to Move bytecode, enhancing the functionality and security of smart contracts, and providing high interoperability with other blockchain systems.

• Flexibility and Strong Scalability: M2's modular design abstracts the consensus layer from the execution layer, allowing each protocol layer to work independently and stay synchronized.

• High Speed and Low Fees: Achieving sub-second finality through parallel Move-EVM and decentralized Sequencer, reportedly reaching $0.01 Gas fees and theoretical TPS of 160,000+.

• High Compatibility: EVM-compatible, supporting aptos and sui move. Deeply connected with Cosmos, supporting native USDC and Cosmos wallets.

StakeStone

• LST Liquidity Cross-Chain Market: StakeStone aims to build a cross-chain market specifically for LST (Liquid Stake Token) liquidity, connecting Ethereum and other blockchains, providing the foundation for seamless asset transfer between different blockchains and solving liquidity fragmentation between the mainnet and Layer 2 networks.

• OPAP Mechanism: StakeStone's innovative Optimized Portfolio and Allocation Proposal (OPAP) mechanism provides a decentralized solution for liquid staking, allowing users to earn STONE tokens by staking ETH, achieving strategic asset allocation and optimized staking rewards.

• Diversified Applications and Efficiency: STONE is not just a token representing ETH staking; it can also be used as an equivalent asset in various DeFi, GameFi, or NFTfi platforms, significantly enhancing its utility and attractiveness.

• LayerZero Integration and Cross-Chain Support: Leveraging LayerZero technology, STONE supports seamless transfer and price alignment across multiple blockchains, making it suitable for a wide range of networks and ecosystems, such as Ethereum, Manta, Base, BNB Chain, Mantle, Linea, and others.

• Rapid Growth in Capital and Market: Since its launch, StakeStone's Total Value Locked (TVL) has experienced rapid growth, reaching up to $1.38 billion, demonstrating strong market demand and trust in such solutions.

• Through these highlights, StakeStone not only provides users with robust staking rewards but also aims to address the fragmentation and efficiency issues in the existing blockchain ecosystem, offering a forward-thinking and innovative staking solution.

Games and Applications

Cellula

• Full-Chain Game with Unique Gameplay: Cellula is a full-chain Conway's Game of Life simulation strategy game using the MUD engine, simulating the game of life in a way similar to actual evolution. In the future, it will enable gameplay possibilities through ERC6551, combining NFTs with various smart contracts.

• Character Growth: Empowering NFTs with autonomous evolution. Traditional NFTs are empowered from top to bottom (creators endow value and send airdrops), while Cellula gives creators the right to build games and give NFTs growth and composability.

• Composability: Game metadata can be combined with other NFTs as raw materials. Similar to LEGO, it can be combined with traditional NFTs or other items and given special identity through genes.

UXLink

• Link To Earn: Different from other social products, UXLINK focuses on personal relationships, simulating real-world social status. Through the "Link To Earn" mechanism and disruptive "Web3-ized groups," it brings a new way of user connection and organizational form, forming a unique protocol and data layer that can provide unique value to Web3 developers.

• High Growth Potential: It is currently the product with the largest traffic in the social track, with users evenly distributed in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Japan, South Asia, South America, and Africa, accumulating rich connected user data.

• UXLINK migrates and deepens real social relationships and scenarios, combining them with the essence of Web3, integrating assets and social interactions. Due to its unique traffic and data, it has also attracted a large number of partners willing to pay, forming a positive cycle between users and partners.

Matr1x

• Project Overview: Matr1x is a Web3 gaming platform that executes premium strategies, independently develops and jointly releases gaming products, and has independently developed a mid-tier protocol for Web3 games to help more Web2 gaming products enter Web3.

• The first game Matr1x Fire is an FPS mobile game. Since its launch, it has accumulated over 1.05 million registered users, with over 1.19 million game downloads, 490,000 UAW, 1.26 million transfers, and currently ranks first on Polygon.

• Project Highlights

￮ Incorporating esports elements naturally attracts a young user base. Matr1x has already conducted 40+ online and offline events globally, covering over 50 gaming communities in 20+ countries and regions, with over 100,000 participants, making it the leading esports brand in the entire Web3 industry.

￮ Emphasizing the value attributes of in-game assets, focusing on game item trading. For example, the core focus of the shooting category is on game item trading, with classic Web2 game CSGO having an annual trading volume of over $38 billion, showing great potential. Matr1x has successfully issued three sets of equity-based NFTs, with over 800,000 holding addresses and a cumulative trading volume exceeding $150 million.

￮ The team consists of industry veterans from top-tier companies with years of experience in gaming and blockchain, having developed and released multiple games with a total revenue of over 30 billion RMB and over 300 million users.

Debox

• Project Overview

￮ DeBox is a DID-based Web3 community management tool. Users holding ERC-20 tokens and NFTs can join relevant groups without permission and use the product's features such as lotteries, proposals, and voting.

• Project Highlights

￮ Debox connects the user side and the community side, serving as a bridge to meet the needs of both parties. It provides a community-driven management tool, including elections, voting, finance, events, lotteries, airdrops, and activity assessments, while offering equal, permissionless, and simple information portal access to all users. Currently, Debox has a strong user base, with over 11,000 DAU, 90,000+ holders, 24,241 communities, and the majority of users are cryptocurrency newcomers from apps.

￮ AI and intent-centric, with over 100 AI-driven chatbots, including GC, trading, search, providing a seamless user experience.

￮ Debox's ecosystem is showing organic growth. Currently, over 120 million in trading volume comes from internal Dex, 59.1 million from innovative social assets, with a monthly net profit exceeding $80,000.

Privasea.io

• Project Overview

￮ Privasea AI Network is an AI processing system that focuses on data privacy and security, using Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) technology to ensure the confidentiality and security of sensitive information by performing calculations on encrypted data.

• Project Highlights

￮ Privacy Protection: Through FHE technology, Privasea AI can analyze and process data without decrypting it, effectively protecting users' sensitive information even when processed in cloud or untrusted computing environments. It provides a privacy-protecting AI solution compliant with strict data protection regulations such as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

￮ Distributed AI Computing: Privasea AI utilizes blockchain technology to incentivize and manage a distributed network, providing the necessary AI processing power. This not only increases the availability of computing resources but also enhances system transparency and security through decentralization.

￮ Diverse Application Scenarios: By combining FHE and AI, Privasea AI opens up new paths for privacy-protecting machine learning and AI applications. Its application scenarios cover various fields such as finance, healthcare, and security regulation, offering a comprehensive solution that protects data privacy while fully utilizing data value.

Risk Disclaimer:

This document is for reference only.

This document does not intend to provide (i) investment advice or recommendations; (ii) offers or solicitations to buy, sell, or hold digital assets; or (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. Digital assets (including stablecoins and NFTs) involve high risks and may experience significant fluctuations, even becoming worthless. Please take responsibility for understanding and complying with applicable local laws and regulations.

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