As the crypto world expands, we’re seeing the emergence of newer, more innovative blockchains looking to solve perceived issues the first chains like bitcoin and Ethereum had. The first two chains were both built on the proof-of-work consensus mechanism, and thus were considered decentralized and secure. The only issue is that they weren’t particularly scalable – meaning their transaction throughput was quite low. This leads to congestion issues like long transaction wait times and high gas fees.
In order to make blockchains more scalable so that higher amounts of users can transact on the blockchain at the same time, you can compromise your decentralization and security. Newer blockchains, such as the upcoming Aptos blockchain, aim to balance this trilemma. The Gotbit team admires innovative solutions, and Aptos has captured not only our attention, but also the attention of millions across the market.
Aptos offers a secure smart contract language, Move, as its base language, safe data storage, multichain development, adequate node requirements, and a distinguished decentralization level with 1000 validators expected in phase 3. Aptos’ dynamic landscape can provide a strong base for many new projects. The Gotbit team invites our readers to join us as we explore some of the projects on Aptos. Let’s get to it!
Pontem Network – a vertically stacked infrastructure on Aptos, Pontem has released a wallet that will support both volatile and stable asset pairs, as well as the first decentralized exchange. The model of their exchange, Liquidswap, combines those of Uniswap and Curve into one.
Pontem received a lot of funding in 2021 when it raised $4.5 million in an investment round led by Mechanism Capital and Kinetic Capital. In total, over 30 investors, including Animoca Brands, Delphi Ventures, and Alameda Adventures, contributed to this round.
Pontem Network was co-founded by developer Stas Oskin, who helped come up with the idea for and launch WINGS DAO and Beam MW, and Boris Povod, the creator of the first javascript DPoS blockchain, Crypti, which served as the code base for Lisk and Ark. The team sees a lot of potential in their project and recently welcomed Alejo Pinto from crypto’s fastest growing Unicorn BlockFi on board as Chief Growth Officer.
Pontem is an attractive project for potential investment due to their vertically integrated products, the support of VCs, as well as the project’s timing and market size. Nothing can be said for sure in this market, but Pontem is definitely showing signs that it is a force to be reckoned with.
Martian Wallet – a wallet built on the Aptos blockchain that makes it easy to explore transactions on Aptos. The wallet works by making private keys, and then overseeing them on behalf of its users. These keys can then be used within the Martian wallet to store Aptos-based assets and sign transactions.
The Aptos ecosystem is innovative and exciting, and one of the key elements of any blockchain ecosystem is a wallet. Among all the wallets on Aptos, including Pontem Wallet, Fewcha Wallet, and Fletch Wallet, Martian Wallet stands out having reached a mark of 75,000 downloads. The wallet has taken the best that existing wallets on other blockchains have to offer and condensed it into one. It runs smoothly and quickly like Metamask, has an intuitive and user-friendly interface like Trust Wallet, is functional like Polkadot js, and NFT-oriented like Phantom. This makes it an interesting project to invest in.
Another reason why investing in crypto wallets may be a solid idea in the current market is that Metamask closed a $450m Series D funding round in March 2022, with a valuation of more than $7 billion. Metamask will also soon have a token as well as a DAO according to owner ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin. The most popular crypto wallet with its own token is Trust Wallet, which is owned by Binance. As of September 2022, the Trust Wallet token is trading with a capitalization of $380 million.
We can’t predict what will happen, but the listing of the Metamask token could cause a dramatic reevaluation in the entire cryptocurrency wallet sector. Martian Wallet could potentially be a lucrative opportunity for investment as it’s a necessary tool in forwarding Aptos adoption.
Econia – a protocol that lets practically anyone in the world trade digital assets at whatever price they want. To be more specific, Econia is an orderbook, which is a fundamental financial tool utilized by financial institutions like stock markets. However, unlike the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ, Econia is decentralized, open-source, and permissionless.
Sooner than we can imagine, any citizen from any country in the world will be able to invest even just one hour’s worth of their cryptocurrency-denominated wages into an American green energy company or a Norwegian cooperative housing bond. Alternatively, they could garner international investments for similar ventures in their own country, and the day is coming when daily on-chain trading volumes will surpass those of centralized exchanges.
Decentralized markets are here to stay, and Econia is the next generation in the evolution of economic access. Global financial inclusion is just around the corner, all it takes is time. Current backers and the current funding round of Econia are yet to be announced.
Similar to Econia, Mango Markets is a project that already exists that is built on Solana. Their funding round valued at below $40 million is excellent despite the bear market. Gotbit sees potential in investing in Econia.
Seam Money – a structured staking, yield composer, and multi-purpose explorer for Aptos, where users can create both simple and complex strategies, allowing any combination of perpetuals. Seam is building the first composable product platform on Aptos, and staking + yield platform for LPs for both institutions as well as everyday users on Aptos.
Like Econia, current backers and funding round details are yet to be announced, however, a project like this is likely to see a valuation of below $30 million, which will definitely increase investment interest. The key question is whether or not the project will be the first of its kind in its niche in the Aptos ecosystem, like Beefy Finance did on BNB Chain. There could easily be a tenfold increase in capitalization with the recovery on the market coupled with the implementation of the team’s plans to further abandon exclusivity for Aptos.
Considering that this is a very early stage project with a solid, good concept, our point of view is to hold off on investment decisions until you can track their future results.
Hippo Labs – the ultimate aggregation layer for the Aptos ecosystem that provides developers with tools to dramatically increase their productivity at the compiler, SDK, and framework-level. The team is building a trade aggregator, open-sourced Swap Implementations, a Move to Typescript Transpiler, a Transaction Simulation API, and an Aptos-wallet-adapter.
This is definitely a promising project, but it has a huge number of existing rivals. Will it be able to compete with such mastodons as 1inch or Cyber Network? Will competitors ignore the Aptos ecosystem? To be honest, it’s too early to predict. In our opinion, while this is an interesting project that would surely aid in the adoption of Aptos, there is not much potential from the investment perspective.
These are just some of the projects poised to capitalize on the success of upcoming blockchain Aptos, which aims to be an upgrade in scalability while also remaining as decentralized as possible and secure. Gotbit is extremely bullish on the Aptos ecosystem, and being one of its investors, we are definitely looking forward to its development and growth. If your interest matches ours, we would be more than happy to connect for a discussion! In the meantime, we all must wait to see what the future has in store for the Aptos Ecosystem.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
