OKX Ventures Quarterly Investment Report: Multi-field layout to help industry development

Original source: OKX Ventures

With the milestone of the US SEC approving the BTC spot ETF in January 2024, the crypto industry has gradually emerged from the cold winter and entered a boom. We saw that the total market value of Crypto reached 2.6 trillion US dollars in the first quarter of 2024, the total supply of stablecoins exceeded 150 billion US dollars, and the market value of Bitcoin once exceeded that of silver. More new narratives such as re-staking, the combination of Web3 and AI, and Bitcoin programmability have emerged and performed strongly, promoting further innovation and development in the crypto market.

The capital market has gradually warmed up, with the total financing scale of more than 1.8 billion US dollars in the quarter, an increase of 50% over the previous quarter. During this period, OKX Ventures continued to increase its investment, participate deeply, and continuously explore high-potential, innovative projects and teams in the crypto industry, actively invest in and empower entrepreneurs, provide all-round support, and contribute to the development of the crypto industry.

Review of key projects in the quarter

In the first quarter of 2024, OKX Ventures invested in multiple tracks including infrastructure, Bitcoin ecology, AI+Depin, Gamefi, Defi, Socialfi, etc., of which infrastructure projects accounted for 60% of the total investment. We believe that the perfection of infrastructure is still the mainstay driving the development of the entire industry. Complete infrastructure can effectively improve the efficiency and security of the entire industry and provide a solid foundation for the rapid development of the industry.

1. infra

Infrastructure is the top priority for the development of the industry. It includes but is not limited to underlying products such as L1/L2 public chains, development platforms and wallets. These products determine the development speed of upper-level applications. Therefore, the infrastructure of blockchain has always been a track that crypto investment institutions focus on. Recently, with the explosive growth of the Bitcoin ecology and the emergence of Ethereum's Dencun upgrade, OKX Ventures has also invested heavily in this to promote the continuous improvement and upgrading of infrastructure settings.

•    AltLayer is a highly scalable application-specific execution layer system built on Optimistic Rollups. It can be connected with Layer1 and Layer2 such as Ethereum, Solana, Polkadot, Cosmos, and even Arbitrum, Optimism, etc. to expand it. In order to better serve developers, AltLayer created Rollups-as-a-Service (RaaS), a versatile, custom Rollup creation platform that does not require programming experience. In addition, AltLayer introduced the concept of instant Rollups. This is a highly optimized Rollup technology that allows dApp developers to quickly deploy specific Rollups, provide security through Layer 1, and then easily settle when needed.

•   Cysic is a zero-knowledge (ZK) hardware company that aims to provide efficient hardware acceleration solutions for ZK proof protocols Solution to help reduce ZK proof generation time and power consumption. The Cysic team has developed FPGA and GPU underlying code libraries for multi-scalar multiplication (MSM), number theory transformation (NTT) Merkle hash number calculations, etc. This is an important part of the ZK protocol, and is also developing ASIC solutions. Running computations like MSM on a CPU can be very power-intensive and time-consuming, which is why Cysic is focused on trying to accelerate these components using FPGAs, GPUs, and ASICs.

•   DEXTools is the world's leading DEFI portfolio and cryptocurrency price tracking application. For enthusiasts and traders in the crypto world, DEXTools helps them stay up to date with live cryptocurrency prices, price alerts, whale movements, blockchain statistics, and DEFI market trends. With an average of 20 million monthly users, DEXTools is an important hub between users and Defi.

•   Eclipse is an Ethereum Layer 2 solution powered by the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) to improve Blockchain scalability and efficiency. It integrates Ethereum’s secure settlement with SVM’s high-performance execution, Celestia’s data availability, and RISC Zero’s zero-knowledge proofs, aiming to achieve high throughput without sacrificing security.

•   Lumoz is a decentralized ZK-RaaS network that also supports ZKP mining PoW network. It uses a mechanism that combines PoS and PoW. Lumoz aims to simplify the use of ZK-Rollup and promote its widespread adoption, thereby facilitating large-scale deployment of zkEVM-based application chains. Developers can deploy their ZK-Rollup (zkEVM) on multiple chains through Lumoz. For miners, Lumoz is a multi-chain PoW protocol that supports mining on various public chains and generates zero-knowledge proofs for ZK-Rollups.

•    Taiko is a decentralized ZK-EVM and universal ZK-Rollup. The aim is to allow developers and users of dApps developed for Ethereum L1 to use them on Taiko without any changes. With Taiko, developers can more easily deploy dApps to L2 and inherit the security of Ethereum while incurring lower transaction fees than L1. Taiko consists of three parts: zkEVM for generating proofs, L2 rollup nodes for management, and Taiko Protocol for rollup verification.

•   ZeroGravity (0G for short) is the first data availability system with a built-in universal storage layer and is extremely scalable nature and decentralization. It achieves scalability by dividing the data availability workflow into data publishing channels and data storage channels. Its products include a data availability layer: 0G DA and a data storage layer: 0G Storage.

•   zkMe is a zk Identity Oracle that provides anonymous user verification on-chain for increased security sex and privacy. zkMe verifies user credentials without revealing any personal information to anyone. When a user (credential holder) uses zkMe to create a DID, they will obtain a unique SBT, which is cryptographically bound to its public key and used as proof of identity, enabling users to authenticate without revealing any sensitive information through ZKP its identity.

As the most important track in cryptographic infrastructure, OKX Ventures has bet on popular projects such as AltLayer and Taiko. The development of the DA layer supports projects such as ZeroGravity. We also work closely on other infrastructure projects, such as DEXTools, the leading cryptocurrency price tracking application.

2. Bitcoin Ecology

It can be said that the Bitcoin ecology is this bull market From the end of 2023 to the beginning of 2024, a variety of protocols, infrastructure, token standards, cross-chain bridges, Rollups and other innovative solutions are constantly emerging, activating the prosperity and development of the Bitcoin ecosystem. OKX Ventures has also followed suit, and has made significant progress in terms of funding, cooperation and resource grafting.

•   Babylon is a Bitcoin (Bitcoin) staking protocol that allows Bitcoin holdings Investors pledge their idle Bitcoins to increase the security of the PoS (Proof-of-Stake) chain, and earn profits in the process. It is a PoS Cosmos zone blockchain that uses extractable one-time signature (EOTS) technology to introduce the PoS chain in the form of original chain pledge to achieve cross-chain and non-fork Bitcoin pledge. mechanism, and uses Bitcoin PoW as the timestamp and data availability layer to provide native security based on BTC.

•   B² Network is an EVM-compatible Bitcoin second-layer network developed based on ZK-Rollup, which can realize the EVM ecosystem Developers deploy Dapps seamlessly. B^2 anchors the data merkle tree root hash and proof of zk-rollup to the Bitcoin network through tapscript, puts the process and results on the chain for easy verification, and achieves a BTC layer 2 with higher legitimacy and usability.

•   Merlin Chain Developed by the Bitmap Tech team, it is based on the BTC network and uses ZK-Rollup Layer2. Using ZK technology, transactions are compressed, and then the compressed transaction data and ZK proofs are uploaded to Taproot on Bitcoin L1 through the decentralized Oracle network for use by the entire network to ensure transparency and security.

•   UniSat Wallet is a header BTC and inscription wallet that supports inscription of BTC assets such as BRC20 , trading and other services, and as one of the indexing service providers, it provides infrastructure services for assets such as BRC20 for the encryption industry. Unisat continues to delve into the BTC ecosystem. For example, it recently launched a proposal to add the function of independent minting and destruction of BRC20 to support the issuance of stable coins in BRC20, and will launch the Bitcoin expansion plan Fractal.

•   bitSmiley is the first native stablecoin project in the BTC ecosystem and is built on the Bitcoin blockchain A comprehensive financial protocol on Fintegra as part of the Fintegra framework. Its core product is BitUSD, an over-collateralized stablecoin based on BTC. Users stake BTC to the BitSmiley DAO and mint BitUSD. Unlike Maker DAO, bitSmiley auctions the platform’s future revenue as debt and repays creditors first. Additionally, BitUSD adopts the new bitRC20 inscription format that is compatible with BRC-20.

•   Bounce Finance is a multi-chain decentralized auction protocol. Focusing on Auction as a service, it provides a variety of auction products, including token and NFT auctions, real-world collectible auctions, advertising space auctions, and SDKs and plug-ins. In addition, Bounce Finance also offers Private Launchpad service, an on-chain solution designed to simplify the IDO of new projects. Currently, Bounce Finance is focused on the BTC ecosystem, focusing on providing incubation and auction support.

•    DLC.Link provides a set of applications through the Discreet Logging Contract (DLC) to make it easy for application developers to Integrate native Bitcoin. The platform locks Bitcoin in on-chain escrow, from where it can be leveraged by Ethereum and other smart contract blockchains. This "trustless bridge" makes lending, trading, derivatives, etc. possible. At the same time, dlcBTC’s non-custodial packaging method allows users to manage Bitcoin by themselves without worrying about third-party risks, such as asset mismanagement or theft.

As you can see, OKX Ventures has made a wide range of investments in the Bitcoin ecosystem in the past few months, from L2’s technical facility Bitmap to defi protocol Bounce Finance , and then to Inscription Wallet Unisat, we have provided good support for the development of the entire ecosystem and even the encryption industry through a comprehensive layout of the Bitcoin ecosystem. At the same time, we are also actively carrying out cooperation related to the Bitcoin ecosystem, such as Babylon, to promote the accelerated development of the industry by encouraging more and more participants to join.

3. Gamefi

In the second half of 2023, Gamefi will also follow the development of the general trend. Gradually it begins to regain its vitality. Marketplaces and infrastructure related to full-chain games, card games, and Web3 games have received widespread attention from the capital market. During this period, OKX Ventures has also made plans in advance and has become one of our investment priorities.

•    Carv.io is a Web3 identity company & game aggregation platform developed to combine web2 and web3 data to create unique Solution for user web3 ID. On this basis, Carv has also established a series of data infrastructure on the game chain. Its mission is to establish a game identity owned by players and realize data value through game data sharing. Its main products include: CARV Protocol's underlying data solution CARV Protocol and the first Dapp on its Protocol, CARV Play, which provides basic functions such as game distribution, game activities, and on-chain activities.

•    Mocaverse Platform is a decentralized version of web3 games & entertainment created by Animoca Brands integrating its 450+ portfolios app store. Its users can apply for a Moca ID, which becomes their Web3 login (similar to an Apple ID), allowing users to interact with Dapps on the platform.

•    Lumiterra is a multiplayer open world survival game where players can freely choose to cultivate combat talents, farm talents, and gathering talents. No longer limited to traditional professions, players can create unique characters based on their interests. At the same time, the Sodium wallet built by Lumiterra uses ERC-4337, ZK and MPC technologies, allowing users to easily log in and manage assets with extremely high security.

•    BLOCKLORDS is a 3A SLG multiplayer strategy game (MMO) based on a multi-chain network launched by game studio MetaKing Studios. Players can play different medieval roles, manage their own farms, recruit teams, collect resources, assign heroes to teams, and upgrade buildings in the process. Create your own unique epic in the medieval universe.

•     L3E7 is a pure 3D LBS (Location Based Service) game. Through map graphics rendering technology, players are immersed in a 3D metaverse world. L3E7's metaverse is based on cities on the real earth, where players can experience what the real world looks like and present it in a cyberpunk art style.

It can be seen that OKX Ventures supports all aspects of Gamefi, from the game identity solution Carv to the large-scale 3D game L3E7, from basic settings to upper-level applications. At the same time, we are also vigorously carrying out relevant cooperation, such as Mocaverse, to involve more users through activities and promote the vigorous development of the Gamefi field. In the future, the combination between game projects and DeFi projects will continue to improve, creating more attractive games and more sustainable business models.

Fourth, Defi

DEFI is an important innovation in the crypto market. It provides financial services to a wide range of users in a decentralized manner through smart contracts. OKX Ventures has seen that since Defi Summer, projects in this field have been constantly innovating and providing various high-potential use cases for Web3 users. In particular, the liquidity staking boom since Ethereum switched to the PoS chain has provided Web3 users with an option that can bring income and increase asset utilization, as well as the resulting re-staking, which brings both income to users and security to projects. The two have become the two most popular directions in the Defi field, stimulating continuous project innovation and ecological improvement.

•    Navi is one of the DEFI protocols with the highest TVL in the SUI ecosystem, with a TVL of about 150 million US dollars. Navi provides users with lending services for long-tail assets on the chain, and cooperates with multiple protocols such as HeroSwap, Ondo Finance, Cetus, etc. to unlock and improve various use cases of Defi, and through the acquisition of LSD protocol Volo, it provides users with a completely decentralized liquidity pledge service and further builds a one-stop Defi platform.

•    Ether.fi provides a completely decentralized liquidity pledge service, on which the pledged tokens have grown rapidly since the beginning of 24, and the total value has now exceeded 2.9 billion US dollars. Ether.fi supports stakers to keep control of their keys when acting as a staking agent, and the ETH staked to Etherfi will naturally be put into EigenLayer for re-staking, so as to ensure a higher degree of decentralization while bringing multiple rewards to users, including staking, re-staking and platform rewards, and promoting the rapid growth of the protocol.

•    Renzo is also a leading project focusing on the field of new liquidity staking. In addition to allowing users to stake native Ethereum to obtain liquidity staking and re-staking income, it also supports the use of more LSD tokens for re-staking. Currently, Renzo has more than 1.25 billion US dollars in assets staked on it.

OKX Ventures focuses on innovation and high-potential projects in the DEFI field, and is optimistic about the vitality that emerging narratives can bring to the DEFI field, helping its projects to provide complete and high-quality products and services for Web3 users.

V. AI

We have seen the explosive growth of the AI track, and the crypto industry has been exploring the combination with AI. Web3 and AI are both developing rapidly, and new points of integration are constantly emerging. OKX Ventures focuses on projects and teams that can bring innovation to the crypto field and bring potential application scenarios and opportunities in this process.

•    io.net is a decentralized GPU network based on Solana, which aims to build a distributed computing network by aggregating idle GPU resources from around the world to provide low-cost and efficient computing resources for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). And through a simple UI interface and integrated platform and data management programs and architectures, it aims to provide a computing platform with higher performance and more complete infrastructure.

•     Myshell focuses on building an interactive AI robot creation platform. The platform can generate an AI that interacts with users based on the information input by the users. By adding voice templates, it can shape an AI based on user settings, with a unique "personality", interaction method and voice. In addition to chatting with users, it can also cover use cases such as translation and text generation.

•     0xScope aims to build an open data layer for Web3 data analysis, and provide a series of tools and services to help users understand and use Web3 data. Through a clear and direct interface, it can generate data analysis reports for the Web3 industry, or perform comprehensive on-chain behavior analysis on specific addresses, just like ChatGPT.

•     FLock is an AI co-creation platform that encourages users to contribute computing power, AI models and private data through a decentralized platform, and promotes the generation of community-oriented AI models. Promote AI innovation through cooperation among all parties.

•     Meson Network aims to build a decentralized bandwidth network, using user-friendly nodes, and through an incentive model, gathers and redistributes loans contributed by users around the world, links both ends of the supply, and forms a sustainable economic cycle. Meson Network has currently attracted more than 250,000 nodes worldwide to support bandwidth needs around the world.

AI and Web3 can be combined and help each other in many ways. From AI-enabled Web3 infrastructure to using AI to power Web3 application platforms, we are optimistic about the ability of high-quality teams to promote a better combination of the two. OKX Ventures believes that with the further development and integration of the two fields of Web3 and AI, the relevant points of integration will be more perfect, which will also stimulate the further development of the two fields of Web3 and AI.

Conclusion:

OKX Ventures believes that with the innovative breakthroughs in the Bitcoin ecosystem, L2 will enter an accelerated period, high-quality game content will move from the testing phase to the official release, and DeFi will continue to innovate with the development of infrastructure. 2024 will be very exciting. At the same time, OKX Ventures also looks forward to actively cooperating with high-quality project parties, providing in-depth support, providing users with high-quality services, and contributing to the industry.

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