Holiday Recommended Reading | Terra's BTC Bet and the Mystery of Anchor Rates; Reasons for StepN's Explosion and Outlook
12 articles take you through this week's industry highlights and developments.Organizer: Zeyi, Chain Catcher
For those who know him, Zhao Changpeng is at the top of an industry that has the potential to completely disrupt the economic field. Regardless of the technical indicators used to assess him, he has reached the top at lightning speed. Since founding Binance in 2017, he has built it from scratch into the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, which now has approximately 100 million users. According to the company, Binance's trading volume far exceeds that of any other platform, reaching an astonishing $34.1 trillion during the crypto boom year of 2021, with the exchange charging a commission on each transaction.
The Mina protocol is a new generation layer 1 blockchain that addresses the issue of state bloat and is considered one of the most promising public chains. With the powerful capabilities of zk-SNARK, Mina maintains a fixed small size of about 11 kB. In addition to decentralization, zk-SNARKs also make Mina more private and efficient than other chains. This article provides a detailed introduction to its technical features, operational mechanism, and economic model.
3. “Is Anchor a Ponzi Scheme? How to Maintain a Stablecoin Interest Rate of Up to 20% in the Long Term”
Terra can be said to be the public chain with the most complex financial architecture design in the current crypto industry. The issuance and anchoring model of its native stablecoin UST has also sparked much heated debate. In this article, we will not discuss whether Terra is a Ponzi scheme, but rather focus on two important interest rates in its ecosystem: the PoS staking rate of Luna and the UST deposit rate of Anchor.
4. “Jump Crypto: Detailed Explanation of the Blockchain Infrastructure Segmentation Track and Landscape”
With the rapid emergence of cross-chain bridges, new frameworks, and other core crypto protocols, effectively planning blockchain infrastructure is a key challenge for users, developers, and investors. The term "blockchain infrastructure" can encompass a variety of different products and services. In this article, our goal is to provide a broad overview of the key components of blockchain infrastructure, breaking these components down into clear, digestible sub-sections, and mapping out the infrastructure landscape.
5. “Sequoia India Leads Investment, Analyzing How ‘STEPN’ Ignited the Chain Game Market”
In the past few months, the hottest chain game in the GameFi market has been ‘STEPN’. This game is built on the Solana blockchain and claims to be the world's first Move To Earn (earn while moving) NFT game. Is the innovative gameplay of "Move To Earn" really reliable? Can the emerging player in the chain game market, "STEPN", succeed in breaking out like "Axie Infinity" and bring incremental growth to the crypto market? The author of this article personally experienced the game and deeply analyzed the project's economic model and development prospects.
6. “Analyzing StepN: Reasons for Its Sudden Popularity, Economic Model, and Future Development Direction”
As one of the hottest projects recently, StepN has sparked much discussion in the industry, and this article is another highly regarded analysis piece this week. It argues that StepN's success is inseparable from its choice of niche track, meeting user demand, rapid development and implementation by the team, thoughtful modeling and gameplay, a large number of industry leaders’ endorsements, and support from Binance. Whether GameFi or Move To Run has its own cycle, this cycle may be relatively short. As enthusiasm wanes, prices drop, old players become weary, or clones emerge in large numbers, will StepN become a "flash in the pan"? This is also a question worth pondering.
7. “The Future of Seamless Cross-Chain: Detailed Explanation of LayerZero and Stargate”
LayerZero Labs has undoubtedly become one of the hottest Web3 teams recently, having been emptied by Alameda under SBF, backed by 0xMaki, seeing its token price multiply by over 10 times after launch, and recently achieving a valuation of $135 million. The immense prospects of inter-chain communication, coupled with already implemented cross-chain products, make this project stand out. This article conducts deeper research on these two projects, attempting to analyze their core mechanisms, future prospects, operational capabilities, and project valuation.
8. “Analysis of Five Popular Chain Games in the GameFi Track: Who Will Be the Next Axie?”
Play-to-Earn can attract new users looking to make a living and retain users in a way that resembles a long-term profession. However, the short-term side chain Ronin suffered a hacker attack, and the team's handling of it was less than satisfactory, drawing criticism from the community. More rises may occur due to the tailwind of the metaverse, with teams and projects profiting immensely.
However, Axie still needs to undergo sufficient time tests to become a true leader in the GameFi field. The "metaverse" requires not only entertainment and profit but also a sense of integration and coexistence.
9. “Interview with Luna Founder Do Kwon: The Bitcoin Gamble of UST”
Terra has developed into a huge ecosystem in the crypto industry that cannot be ignored, with TVL second only to Ethereum, and UST has become the fourth largest stablecoin. However, as the ecosystem continues to grow, many have begun to worry about the risk of LUNA's death spiral. Recently, Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon was interviewed by the well-known crypto podcast "Unchained Podcast," where he answered questions about the new backing mechanism for UST and Anchor's yields. This article is a整理 translation of that podcast.
10. “Messari: Detailed Explanation of Oasis Network's Operational Mechanism, Economic Model, and Roadmap”
Oasis Network aims to become a privacy-centric, scalable proof-of-stake (PoS) layer 1 smart contract platform. With its unique architecture and deployment of privacy computing technology, Oasis Network is sowing the seeds for the development of an open, data-responsible privacy economy.
Cobie & Ledger, hosts of the crypto video podcast UpOnly, recently interviewed Haseeb Qureshi, a partner at Dragonfly Capital, discussing his growth journey, investment gains and losses, and future development trends in depth.
12. “Which Early Projects Are Leading Crypto VC Firms Betting on Recently? | 3.16 - 3.31”
In this article, Chain Catcher will introduce the early projects that leading crypto VC firms have recently bet on (March 1-15), including basic information, official websites, related reports, etc., to help readers further understand potential projects for the future.
13. “Revisiting the Fat Protocol Theory: The Value Capture Ability of the Protocol Layer is Diminishing”
In 2016, Joel Monegro of Union Square Ventures published a public paper on Fat Protocols. The Fat Protocol theory posits that crypto protocols can capture more value than Dapps; for every dollar of value captured at the Dapp layer, the protocol layer can capture the same or even more value, as the application layer relies on the protocol layer to support all interactions.
This article argues that while some principles of the Fat Protocol theory can withstand the test of time, the value capture ability of the protocol layer is diminishing. Although investors can profit in the short term by betting on new protocols, they should also be mindful to allocate more of their portfolio to Dapps as a way to hedge against increasing competition among protocols.
