Introduction
Over the past decade, Bitcoin has demonstrated remarkable resilience and innovation, even during challenging market periods. It has introduced groundbreaking elements to modern monetary systems, internet technology, and financial sectors, establishing itself as a prominent mainstream global asset.
On January 10, 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officially approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs for trading on regulated exchanges. This milestone reflects the deep insight, innovative practices, and persistent efforts of visionaries within the crypto industry. Their collective work has paved the way for the realization of a future digital society. Venture capital has played a crucial role throughout this journey, demonstrating strong confidence and a relentless pursuit of the future, even during the two-year bear market. Investors in the crypto space have effectively utilized financial resources to support struggling projects and collaboratively create a compelling vision for a digital future. As a result, cryptocurrency has emerged as a powerful driver behind the industry's continuous innovation.
In 2023, the crypto industry experienced significant growth, with its total market capitalization surging to $1.761 trillion. Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, re-entered the top ten global assets by market value, reaching an impressive $827 billion by December 31, 2023. In terms of institutional investment, the sector raised a total of $9.11 billion across 1,179 funding rounds throughout the year. Within this dynamic landscape, OKX Ventures played a vital role by actively participating in and contributing to the industry's development.
Throughout the year, OKX Ventures demonstrated unwavering determination and resilience in a challenging primary market environment. Contrary to prevailing trends, the firm strategically strengthened its investment portfolio, achieving an impressive annual investment total exceeding $50 million. OKX Ventures adopted a dual approach: 1) building deep partnerships with prominent ecosystems like Solana, NEAR, Polygon, and Avalanche, establishing ecosystem funds to support developers building critical components on these chains, and actively engaging in community building; and 2) collaborating with Gitcoin and Blockbooster to organize hackathons in San Jose and Hong Kong, discovering and nurturing innovative, high-quality projects while providing comprehensive support through its unique capabilities and resources.
Furthermore, as part of its expansion efforts, OKX Ventures is gradually extending support to projects deployed on its public chain.
In the Year of the Dragon, the convergence of a favorable macroeconomic environment and the ongoing innovation cycle within the crypto industry sets the stage for a potential bull market. With anticipated Federal Reserve rate cuts, the highly awaited Cancun upgrade on the Ethereum network, the approaching Bitcoin halving, and the rapid growth of BTC-based ETFs worldwide, we can envision a promising and dynamic year ahead in 2024. As a prominent firm in the crypto space, OKX Ventures possesses exceptional foresight in investments and has focused on numerous projects with significant potential. Through extensive research on industry innovations and emerging trends, we are pleased to share our insights on the seven most explosive trends expected to shape 2024.
Overview of Key Projects in 2023
OKX Ventures' investments span various sectors, including infrastructure, GameFi, DeFi, Web3.0, the Bitcoin ecosystem, AI, and more. Approximately 50% of these investments focus on infrastructure and DeFi projects, underscoring the critical role of foundational technology. Infrastructure provides a secure, efficient, and reliable operating environment for crypto assets and blockchain technology, and its robustness directly impacts the overall development and sustainability of the entire industry. Well-established infrastructure fosters innovation, attracts broader participation, and lays a solid foundation for the long-term prosperity of the crypto sector.
The year 2023 witnessed a gradual recovery of the crypto industry following the previous downturn. However, the primary market faced numerous challenges due to the prolonged two-year bear market. Undeterred by these conditions, OKX Ventures remained steadfast in its commitment to investing in high-quality teams and startup projects. Leveraging its extensive industry resources, including deep expertise and a thriving exchange ecosystem, OKX Ventures provided comprehensive and diverse support to innovative projects with significant potential. Notably, the total amount invested surpassed an impressive $50 million last year.
OKX Ventures invested in numerous high-quality projects, including Polyhedra, Celestia, Kakarot, MegaRollup, AltLayer, BitSmiley, BeWater, Babylon, Cetus, Ethena, Flashbots, HUG, MoonBox, Mocaverse, Matr1x, Orbiter, Republic, Rage Trade, Sei, Taiko, TRLab, ZKM, and others.
Below, we present a curated list of exciting projects demonstrating innovation across various fields.
Layer 2 Scaling Solutions
Layer 2 solutions have brought significant improvements to the Ethereum network, enhancing scalability, transaction efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and reducing the load on the main chain. Currently, multiple solutions like ZK Rollup, Optimistic Rollup, Validium, and Plasma have been developed, playing an increasingly vital role in strengthening privacy protections and reducing transaction costs. Two projects we are focusing on are Scroll and Taiko.
1) Scroll: A native zkEVM Layer 2 solution for Ethereum, representing a Type 2 zkEVM. It achieves native compatibility with existing Ethereum applications and tools. Transactions are executed off-chain, after which succinct proofs of correctness are submitted on-chain. This approach delivers higher throughput and lower costs compared to the Ethereum base layer.
2) Taiko: A decentralized ZK-EVM equivalent to Ethereum and a general-purpose ZK-Rollup. It aims to enable developers and users of dApps built for Ethereum L1 to use Taiko without any code modifications. Consequently, dApps can be easily deployed on L2, inheriting Ethereum's security while generating lower transaction fees than L1.
MEV Sector
MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) refers to the maximum profit miners or block producers can obtain during transaction execution on a blockchain due to variations in transaction order, bundling, and validation methods. While it maximizes participant profits by optimizing transaction order, it also raises discussions concerning security issues and network effects. Currently, developers and communities are working together to find fairer, more efficient, and secure MEV solutions.
1) Flashbots: A mainstream MEV solution aimed at mitigating the negative externalities and risks MEV poses to smart contract blockchains, providing a fair, transparent, and permissionless ecosystem. This includes three goals: democratizing access to MEV revenue, bringing transparency to MEV activities, and redistributing MEV earnings.
Cross-Chain Sector
Cross-chain bridges address interoperability issues between different public chains, promote asset liquidity and crypto application utility, provide users with more choices and flexibility, and thereby help build a robust, diverse, and interconnected blockchain ecosystem.
1) LayerZero: A full-chain interoperability protocol specifically designed for lightweight cross-chain message transmission. It provides reliable and guaranteed message delivery with a trustless mechanism.
2) Orbiter Finance: The most popular Rollup bridge on Ethereum, used for transferring native Ethereum assets. It proposes a cross-chain messaging protocol that provides an aggregated middleware layer for ZK-Rollups, increasing Layer 2 performance and reducing gas consumption.
Cosmos Ecosystem
An increasing number of high-quality projects like Celestia and Sei Network are building on Cosmos. Cosmos is an open platform and ecosystem designed to solve blockchain interoperability problems. It enables secure and reliable cross-chain communication between different blockchains. By providing efficient cross-chain connection and communication tools, Cosmos offers more choices for developers and users, and its ecosystem continues to grow and expand.
1) Berachain: A Cosmos Layer 1 with an EVM-compatible architecture utilizing a Proof-of-Liquidity (PoL) consensus mechanism. It introduces the Bera network with a three-token system, comprising the network's gas token BERA, the ecosystem stablecoin HONEY, and the non-transferable governance token BGT.
2) Sei Network: A high-performance Layer 1 specifically designed for digital asset trading. It boasts the industry's shortest transaction latency, with a minimum of 300 milliseconds. It features a built-in order matching engine (OME) that can help scale trading applications. Its anti-front-running mechanism can counter MEV. Recently, its parallelized EVM narrative has generated significant market interest.
AI + Web3 Gaming Sector
Web3 gaming restores data ownership to players, meaning players can fully own and freely trade crypto assets obtained in-game. They can also participate in game improvements, develop new features, and adjust economic models through voting rights and rewards, thereby engaging more deeply in the game ecosystem. The development of Web3 gaming pushes the industry toward a more open, transparent, and user-friendly direction.
1) Matr1x: Matr1x is an advanced cultural entertainment platform combining web3, AI, and gaming. Its primary mission is to drive a revolution and foster innovation in the gaming and content industries using blockchain technology and artificial intelligence. The company offers various services, including internally developed mini-games and collaborations with third-party partners, cooperative IP game development, and global esports events. The platform will introduce its game trilogy, comprising Cyber Earth, Mars Immigration, and Interstellar Exploration, through three distinct titles within a shared universe: Matr1x FIRE (FPS), Matr1x WAR (shooter + MMORPG), and Matr1x EVOLUTION (SOC).
Bitcoin Ecosystem
In 2023, the emergence of Ordinals and BRC-20 activated the Bitcoin ecosystem, creating a new narrative for Bitcoin beyond store of value, trading, and payment. It increased miner revenue, alleviated user concerns about the impact of the Bitcoin halving on network security, and spurred the prosperous development of the inscription ecosystem on other major public chains. Bitcoin has since broken its "digital gold" mold, with numerous L2 protocols, tokens, cross-chain bridges, etc., thriving, and market attention has begun returning to the Bitcoin ecosystem.
1) Bitmap Tech (formerly Recursiverse): An innovative project aimed at building an intelligent, decentralized, and composable digital world through the Bitcoin Ordinals network and Layer 1. The project demonstrates a firm commitment to building a valuable metaverse ecosystem and has launched products like BRC420, recursive index inscription Inception, and Bitmap.Game.
2) B² Network: A Layer-2 solution built on Bitcoin, combining ZKP verification for BTC. It can inscribe state commitments and ZKPs into BTC inscriptions to achieve a more native and usable Bitcoin Layer 2.
3) Babylon: A proposed Bitcoin staking protocol that allows Bitcoin holders to stake their idle Bitcoin to enhance the security of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) chains and earn yield in the process, aiming to integrate Bitcoin with the PoS economic system.
4) BitSmiley: The first native BTC stablecoin project. It is a comprehensive financial protocol established on the Bitcoin blockchain, forming part of the Fintegra framework.
OKX Ventures' portfolio encompasses trends like L2, the Bitcoin ecosystem, the Cosmos ecosystem, AI+Web3 gaming, and more. By effectively mobilizing abundant resources, OKX Ventures provides robust support to drive the development of innovative projects within the crypto industry. The emphasis on infrastructure, including networks, protocols, hardware, and other critical components, plays a vital role in advancing the growth and maintaining the stability of the entire crypto ecosystem.
7 Predictions for 2024
Continuously evolving with new technologies and solutions, the cryptocurrency industry is a relentless force driving its own development. OKX Ventures is committed to long-term value investing, embracing industry innovation, and anticipating upcoming changes. Leveraging our expertise, we have outlined seven key predictions that will shape the landscape in 2024.
1. Bitcoin Breakthrough: Expanding Applications and Enhanced On-Chain Activity Bolster Network Security
From a fundamental perspective, the Bitcoin ecosystem has experienced rapid expansion in both user numbers and on-chain addresses, indicating growing interest and adoption of digital assets over the years. Meanwhile, the upcoming Bitcoin halving event in 2024 is expected to serve as a crucial catalyst, further enhancing its fundamental appeal as a store of value.
The cumulative number of Bitcoin addresses surpassed 1.2 billion in 2023, and the global user base for crypto assets grew from 5 million users in 2016 to over 500 million users in 2023. Regarding network activity, Bitcoin's monthly active users were around 13.7 million, with on-chain transaction data reaching 17.5 million. From an on-chain data growth perspective, the size of the Bitcoin blockchain was approximately 542 GB as of January 16, 2024 – a 70% increase from three years prior. All this reflects explosive growth in Bitcoin's usage as the leading cryptocurrency.
On-chain activity for Bitcoin has also surged in recent months. Ordinals made significant strides last year, empowering the Bitcoin network with asset issuance capabilities and driving large-scale applications like inscriptions. The total volume of BRC-20 transfers exceeded 45.4 million, total fees generated by BRC-20 surpassed 4,290 BTC, the total number of inscriptions exceeded 53 million, and total fees generated by Ordinals surpassed 5,383 BTC. OKX Ventures firmly believes future Bitcoin asset issuance protocols will become more diverse, enabling greater support for native innovations. Innovative asset protocols like Ordinals, BRC-20, RGB, Taproot Assets, Runes, Taro, Atomicals, etc., along with potential new scaling solutions, will unlock countless possibilities within the ecosystem. OKX Ventures has strategically invested in scaling projects like BitSmiley (supporting native DeFi), Babylon (enabling PoS security), Bitmap Tech, and B² Network (promoting Layer2 scaling).
Furthermore, numerous improvements are set to revolutionize user privacy and transaction efficiency on the Bitcoin ecosystem. The development of the Lightning Network, including the use of MuSig2 for single-channel taproot, payment splitting and swapping (PSS) to increase network throughput and mitigate balance probing attacks, as well as interactive multi-signature aggregation (MuSig2) and multi-HTLCS to minimize on-chain costs and enhance jamming resistance, will play a pivotal role in driving progress. Additionally, the combination of Taproot Assets and RGB introduces a new on-chain mechanism for tokens. Security and privacy are further enhanced through soft fork proposals like the P2P transaction protocol version 2, OP_VAULT, and BIP324. Moreover, the AssumeUTXO feature in Bitcoin Core aims to improve the experience for new full nodes. These innovations collectively establish a more robust, efficient, and user-friendly Bitcoin network.
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2. Ethereum's Dencun Upgrade: Enhancing Layer2 Usability and Driving Industry Growth
2023 began with challenges for the Ethereum blockchain, particularly in the first three quarters. Bearing the remnants of a bear market, Ethereum witnessed a decline in Total Value Locked (TVL), hitting a multi-year low in early October 2023. As the market gradually regained strength, TVL began recovering, ultimately ending the year at $30 billion, a notable increase from $20 billion just 2.5 months prior. Furthermore, various Ethereum metrics showed growth in the final months of the year, indicating building momentum for the blockchain.
The Ethereum ecosystem saw a notable increase in the number of Layer2 projects, exceeding 34 compared to an initial figure of around 18. Daily active users on Layer2 surpassed those on Layer1, demonstrating increasing adoption of Layer2 solutions. DeFi emerged as a primary application for Ethereum, with gas usage starting at 31% and gradually rising to nearly 50% by year-end. Among these figures, Uniswap accounted for 11.7% of Ethereum's total transactions throughout the year. Conversely, gas usage related to NFTs declined from 32% in January to 7% in December, reflecting shifting market dynamics. The Shanghai upgrade played a crucial role, leading to an impressive 82% increase in staking volume. Over 24% of ETH was staked, expanding use cases and becoming a significant credit source for ecosystem development. This upgrade indicated the growing popularity and importance of staking within the Ethereum ecosystem.
The Dencun upgrade emerged as a critical and most favorable development for Ethereum in 2024. The implementation of the Proto-Danksharding EIP-4844 proposal brings fundamental performance improvements for Layer 2 projects. Furthermore, the introduction of Blobspace addresses the limitations of calldata, resolving a significant constraint. By allowing Layer 2 to handle higher transaction volumes sent to the main network concurrently, this upgrade helps reduce costs for users. In the future, competition among Layer 2 solutions is predicted to revolve around operational capabilities and decentralized deployment, including Restaking, Data Availability (DA) innovation, Decentralized Sequencers, and decentralized Prover narratives. These advancements aim to enhance efficiency, security, and decentralization within the Ethereum ecosystem.
Ethereum's steadfast commitment to in-depth research continues to lead the industry, addressing critical issues like ZK application, modularization, EVM Object Format (EOF), and account abstraction. Notably, the emergence of Ethereum's scaling solution, Rollup, marked a significant breakthrough. Despite market fluctuations and competition from rival chains, Ethereum maintains a leadership role in driving comprehensive industry research and technological innovation. OKX Ventures anticipates several critical EIPs, including ERC-4337, EIP-4844, EIP-3074, EIP-5003, Verkle Tree, and the corresponding Prague/Electra upgrade plans, playing a vital role in Ethereum's development in the coming year. Overall, Ethereum continues to lead industry innovation trends, consistently contributing to the overall growth of the blockchain industry, including technical research and ecosystem building.
3. Led by Solana, Alt-Layer 1 Ecosystems to Benefit from Full Industry Recovery
Blockchains can be likened to cities rather than just networks, and public chains like Solana and Move-based chains have made significant contributions to new infrastructure development. As the industry attracts new users, the city-like characteristics of low cost and high capacity of these chains will be fully demonstrated. Consequently, single-chip chains, such as Solana and Cosmos, are experiencing a revival, with their numbers of developers, market value, and active users all increasing.
Solana's developer ecosystem has exceeded expectations, boasting approximately 2,500-3,000 monthly active developers and positioning itself as the second-largest ecosystem by total monthly active developers. The three-month developer retention rate increased from 31% to over 50%, indicating a steady influx of new developers. More than half of these developers have at least three years of experience, demonstrating a higher level of contribution and the development of more mature applications.
Solana differentiates itself from Ethereum by 'charging rent' for DApp programs and voting fees for validators, creating additional value for the SOL token beyond transaction fees. This value-accrual mechanism shifts costs from users to DApp programs and infrastructure providers, leading to better scalability. Consequently, user transaction costs are reduced, enhancing the overall user experience. Solana offers superior performance metrics compared to Ethereum, albeit with higher hardware requirements. This emphasis on hardware does not lead to centralization but instead allows for high throughput and fast transaction confirmation times. Solana's smart contracts, utilizing standardized structures like Metaplex, reduce the auditing burden for users and developers, fostering business activities. Standardizing innovation and contracts can reduce costs for developers and users.
The Solana ecosystem holds immense potential in 2024. Projects like Teleport, Helium, and Render Network leverage Solana's scalability and efficiency to redefine traditional models in ride-hailing, IoT communication, and GPU rendering, respectively. As a catalyst for speed, reduced transaction costs, and providing network-scale architecture, Solana has become the go-to choice for entrepreneurs driving the decentralized future. As these projects integrate seamlessly with Solana, they not only overcome the limitations of centralized systems but also pave the way for building more comprehensive, flexible, and dynamic decentralized physical networks.
4. Tighter Integration of AI and Web3 Technologies Yields New Applications
2022 and 2023 were breakthrough years for AI, as we witnessed significant advancements in the field. In October 2022, OpenAI's ChatGPT was released and quickly gained widespread popularity, attracting 1 million users within just 5 days. Delphi Digital also noted that ChatGPT continued to break records, becoming the fastest application to reach 100 million users. This remarkable growth paved the way for integrating artificial intelligence into the crypto market. AI projects in the crypto industry primarily focus on decentralized computing power, decentralized AI public chains, AI model trading markets, AI applications, ZKML, and other related fields. Among these, OKX Ventures identifies decentralized computing power, AI agents, and AI+Web3 applications as particularly noteworthy and deserving of continued attention.
Decentralized computing power within the blockchain ecosystem presents an opportunity to reduce costs due to its inherently decentralized nature. The more decentralized the computing power nodes, the lower the price of unit computing power. The introduction of Web3's unique token economic governance model opens tremendous possibilities for model training, inference, optimization, and computing power distribution. The synergistic power between AI and Web3 enables the creation of imaginative applications in these fields.
An AI Agent is an intelligent agent program capable of automated decision-making and execution. It plays a crucial role in simulating and assuming human roles. By enhancing information communication between blockchain and the external world, AI Agents intelligently select cross-chain solutions to best meet user needs. This effectively addresses the "information island" problem caused by the rapid development of public chain ecosystems, offering users a superior cross-chain experience.
AI + Web3 applications primarily aim to improve user experience, enhance development efficiency, and seamlessly integrate into existing blockchain applications. This integration can be observed in areas like AI combined with DeFi, gaming, NFTs, etc. The technical combination of AI and Web3, supported by a compliant environment, is expected to reshape user behavior models in Web3, accelerate widespread adoption, and contribute to establishing a trustworthy digital society.
OKX Ventures recognizes the importance of AI and has invested in projects like Flock and MyShell. For example, MyShell leads in multimodal voice models, credited with over 12k stars on Github, 420,000 product subscribers, 50,000 creators, 70,000 private robots, and 900 public robots. It serves as a prime example of successfully integrating AI Agent and Web3 applications.
5. Paradigm Shift in Blockchain Gaming and Potential Breakthrough in Fully On-Chain Games (FOCG)
Although it did not achieve explosive growth in 2023, blockchain gaming continued to demonstrate potential due to its ability to handle large user bases and leverage valuable data. According to data, the gaming industry had 133 deals, raising an impressive $1.18 billion. The total number of game projects reached approximately 2,500 to 3,500. Furthermore, data revealed that the GameFi sector attracted a staggering 340 million users in 2023, with a total transaction volume exceeding $3.2 billion and over 7.4 billion transfers. Notably, gaming projects generated an average on-chain transaction volume 23 times higher than DeFi protocols. For example, Sweat Economy, powered by NEAR, emerged as one of the most widely used move-to-earn mobile applications globally, with over 145 million active users. It also attracted 2.1 million monthly active wallet users, with 1 million performing on-chain activities through Sweat Economy.
Blockchain gaming is poised to become a significant driver of user growth, especially with the opportunity presented by upcoming AAA titles. On the supply side, development efforts throughout 2023 have yielded many high-quality games now ready for release. With the introduction of AAA gaming intellectual property, traditional gamers can seamlessly transition into the Web3 world, paving the way for a new era in the gaming industry. OKX Ventures anticipates a revival of blockchain gaming in 2024, marking the beginning of intense competition for users among various titles. OKX Ventures is optimistic about the potential of AAA games to attract users and generate asset value. Consequently, OKX Ventures has strategically invested in projects like Big Time, Ember Sword, Shrapnel, etc. Notably, the launch of the $BIGTIME token aligned perfectly with increasing market interest. Players have the opportunity to earn in-game token rewards daily, contributing to token price appreciation and making it one of the more successful investments in the GameFi space.
In the future, Fully On-Chain Games (FOCG) are set to become a significant area of growth within the gaming industry. FOCG refers to games where assets, payments, and game logic all occur on the blockchain, introducing a new and complex on-chain application model that enables financialization and composability. Currently, the FOCG track is still in its early stages, undergoing development and construction, and the availability of applications and assets is somewhat limited. However, this represents a tremendous opportunity for growth. OKX Ventures holds an optimistic view of FOCG and has strategically invested in projects like Curio to support industry innovation. It is predicted that FOCG will thrive across various aspects, including tools, game content, wallets, trading platforms, and other peripheral ecosystems. These developments will contribute to the expansion and maturation of the FOCG landscape, fostering new and exciting possibilities for gamers and developers.
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6. DePIN Maintains Strong Growth Momentum
DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) has emerged as a robust physical infrastructure network, leveraging blockchain technology to enable transparent and efficient management of real-world services. The sector experienced significant growth in 2023 with the total market capitalization of liquid tokens exceeding $20 billion. It also generated real-world use cases with a recorded transaction volume of over $11 billion and generated on-chain annual revenue exceeding $15 million. The DePIN ecosystem is vibrant, comprising over 650 active projects spanning six categories: compute, artificial intelligence (AI), wireless, sensors, energy, and services. What truly sets DePIN apart is that its revenue generation is primarily utility-based rather than speculative. Although some cryptocurrencies experienced declines of over 70% in bear markets, DePIN sector revenue remained relatively unaffected, with decreases ranging from about 20% to 60% from their peaks. This resilience demonstrates the robustness of the DePIN sector.
OKX Ventures believes DePIN will explore new pathways by developing tighter integration capabilities with AI, zero-knowledge (ZK) proof, gaming, and other broader fields in 2024. For instance, the on-chain deployment of ZK-verifiable GPU cloud services could become a reality within the next 1-2 years, making centralized providers unable to offer equivalent services. From a narrative perspective, OKX Ventures holds an optimistic outlook for DePIN infrastructure and related Layer 1 chains.
Due to the numerous benefits some general-purpose blockchains can offer, including high throughput, low cost, and large developer communities, many DePINs are currently being developed on networks like Solana and Polygon. Notably, projects like Helium and Render Network have migrated to Solana, attracting a large number of users to the network. The total number of IoTeX users has reached 440,000, with Solana alone having over 180,000 Helium users. Considering the growing user demand, it is predicted that by 2024, DePIN-dedicated Layer1 blockchains will begin launching and expanding, providing specialized chains designed for the needs of the DePIN ecosystem.
7. Improved Macroeconomic Conditions Fuel a New Era for the Crypto Industry
The cryptocurrency industry is making significant strides toward becoming regulated as regulatory frameworks are established and improved in countries like El Salvador, Canada, Dubai, Brazil, and others. This progress is expected to create a more favorable environment for the industry's development in 2024, expanding the global reach of cryptocurrency. The recent approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allows traditional financial investors access to Bitcoin, further promoting the industry's legitimization, scaling development, and transforming the traditional finance sector to embrace innovation. This collective effort aims to promote fairness, security, and transparency in the financial industry.
According to data, the 9 new spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted over $6 billion in inflows, with BlackRock's IBIT raising $2.37 billion, followed by Fidelity's FBTC with $2.1 billion. These ETFs successfully attracted capital from traditional finance, which decided to allocate funds to cryptocurrency. From another angle, on-chain stablecoin supply is also increasing, indicating new funds are beginning to flow in continuously. Data shows the total market value of stablecoins was $135 billion as of January 31, 2024, an increase of over $10 billion from the recent low in August 2023.
With strong capital backing, the crypto ecosystem is poised to accelerate development and innovation. Over the years, we have witnessed the rapid growth of blockchain infrastructure, fueled by the investment and resources provided by venture capital (VC), creating a ripe environment for new applications and innovation. From January 2020 to January 2024, the investment trend extended beyond CeFi, prioritizing infrastructure, gaming, NFTs, and DeFi. Several of these projects have not only achieved impressive results in product delivery but also successfully raised capital during the previous bear market. Consequently, they are ready to play pivotal roles as key drivers and contributors to the upcoming wave of innovation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the significance of the Bitcoin halving in 2024?
The Bitcoin halving is a scheduled event that reduces the block reward miners receive by half. It is significant because it historically reduces the rate of new Bitcoin entering circulation, which can impact supply and demand dynamics. Many analysts view it as a potential catalyst for price increases due to the reduced selling pressure from miners and the constant or growing demand.
How does Ethereum's Dencun upgrade improve Layer 2 solutions?
The Dencun upgrade, specifically through EIP-4844 (Proto-Danksharding), introduces "blobs" of data that can be attached to blocks. This significantly reduces the cost for Layer 2 networks to post transaction data back to the Ethereum mainnet. Lower data costs for L2s translate directly into lower transaction fees for end-users on those networks, making them more scalable and affordable.
What makes AI and Web3 integration promising?
The integration is promising because it combines AI's capabilities in data analysis, automation, and user interaction with Web3's principles of decentralization, ownership, and transparency. This can lead to smarter decentralized applications (dApps), automated trading strategies in DeFi, personalized experiences in gaming and NFTs, and decentralized AI marketplaces where data and models can be traded securely.
What are Fully On-Chain Games (FOCG)?
Fully On-Chain Games are games where all core components—including game logic, asset ownership, and state changes—are stored and executed directly on a blockchain. This contrasts with most current blockchain games that might only have assets (NFTs) on-chain while the game logic runs on centralized servers. FOCG enables true decentralization, composability (where assets can be used across different games), and new economic models.
Why is DePIN considered a robust sector?
DePIN is considered robust because its value is primarily derived from real-world utility and revenue generation rather than pure speculation. Projects provide actual services like wireless connectivity, computing power, or data storage. Their income streams are often more stable during market downturns compared to purely speculative crypto assets, making the sector more resilient.
Conclusion
The development of the cryptocurrency industry has become a catalyst for innovations in internet technology and financial services, opening a world of future potential. The industry's builders are the creators of this digital future, possessing deep insights into blockchain technology. These builders have achieved significant success in the crypto industry through relentless innovation and dedication. However, they are not satisfied with the status quo and continue to push the industry forward with further innovation. They actively engage in open-source projects, lead startups, build communities, and contribute to industry development. Their dedication inspires others to participate and brings new energy to the crypto economy.
As new technologies and global crypto regulations emerge, the relationship between the cryptocurrency industry and traditional finance is also evolving. The interaction between the two is shifting from competition to integration, influencing market liquidity. The cryptocurrency industry is poised for growth in 2024, but the influx of large-scale liquidity takes time. As the industry evolves, innovative projects require capital, technology, and professional strategic support to thrive.
OKX Ventures, as a leading investment institution, has established a leadership position in the industry, supporting diverse innovations and aiding industry builders, including high-quality startup teams and projects. With a deep understanding of the blockchain industry, coupled with extensive expertise in post-investment management, we have developed a progressive and empowering approach through global collaboration. By integrating and promoting cross-border cooperation, we provide our partners access to OKX's rich resources, including traffic, trading, public chains, and technological support. This allows us to establish a comprehensive "OKX resource system," facilitating seamless collaboration and providing diverse services for our portfolio companies. Furthermore, OKX Ventures goes beyond the role of a traditional financial investor. We actively assume the role of explorer and supporter, driving growth alongside our startup partners to foster creativity and innovation within the industry.
Throughout its history since its inception in 2009, Bitcoin has weathered economic cycles and market volatility, consistently recovering from lows and reaching new highs. This resilience has instilled confidence in long-term value investors, including OKX Ventures. In an ever-evolving market context, OKX Ventures stays abreast of market trends, adapts to the market environment, and remains steadfast in investing in innovative projects within the crypto industry. This approach has allowed OKX Ventures to successfully navigate multiple bull and bear cycles, delivering favorable investment returns. In the future, OKX Ventures will continue to engage deeply in the mainstream crypto market, supporting industry builders, high-quality teams, and projects.