OKX Ventures April Investment Monthly Report: Continue to focus on the construction of industry infrastructure such as B

With the completion of Bitcoin halving, for BTC, which is deeply integrated with the U.S. stock market, macroeconomics, financial data and central bank policies have become important factors affecting the trend of Bitcoin. The high interest rate environment and low expectations of interest rate cuts will continue to affect market trends.

At present, the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem is still in its early stages, but infrastructure construction is currently developing rapidly. Bitcoin layer 1 innovations represented by Arch, client verification represented by Nervos RGB++, and Layer 2 infrastructure projects represented by Bitlayer and BounceBit have taken shape. Industry insiders generally believe that applications within the Bitcoin ecosystem will explode in the future, and the market is expected to see DeFi Summer, NFT Summer, and GameFi Summer belonging to the Bitcoin ecosystem.

In addition, the development of the crypto market infrastructure sector is showing a diversified trend. Parallel EVM is a narrative hotspot, and leading projects such as Monad and Aptos have led dozens of public chains to follow the parallel EVM narrative. The modular narrative continues to develop, and Movement, Avail and Staketone also completed this round of fundraising in April. In addition, 1 million new tokens were created throughout the network in April, 640,000 on Solana and 320,000 on Base, and more infrastructure is ushering in development.

In terms of the continued growth of the application ecosystem, the game ecosystem projects continue to explode, and high-quality games represented by Matr1x and full-chain games represented by Cellula are about to explode. Although the market value of the game field fell by 30% in April. However, the number of daily active users (number of wallets) reached 3 million, a record high, an increase of 16.9% from March, which to some extent indicates the increase in user participation and willingness to participate.

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 the potential progress of Ethereum ETFs in Hong Kong and the United States, and invested in multiple projects.

Bitcoin Ecosystem

Arch Protocol

According to the Arch Protocol white paper:

• Project Overview

￮ Arch is a Bitcoin-native application platform that aims to enable decentralized finance (DeFi) on the worlds most valuable blockchain without relying on bridge technology. Arch leverages the direct operation characteristics of the Bitcoin blockchain to expand Bitcoins programmability and provide a secure, decentralized execution layer that enables developers to develop complex applications on Bitcoin.

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

• Project Highlights

￮ Bitcoin native integration, support for DeFi and NFTs: Arch operates directly on the first layer (Layer 1) of Bitcoin, avoiding the complexity and efficiency issues in traditional second-layer solutions, and directly utilizing 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, which brings new value and functionality to the Bitcoin ecosystem.

￮ Smart Contract Functionality: Through the Zero-Knowledge Virtual Machine (ZKVM), Arch is able to 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 Verification Network: The core of Arch is its decentralized verification node network, which verifies zero-knowledge proofs (ZK Proofs) to ensure the correct execution of transactions and applications. This network structure enhances the security and censorship resistance of the platform and avoids centralization risks.

￮ Fully on-chain operations: All transactions and status 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 white paper:

• Project Overview

￮ Bitlayer is a second-layer Bitcoin network based on BitVM technology, aiming to introduce scalability to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Bitlayer provides security equivalent to Bitcoins first layer and is Turing complete, enabling developers to perform arbitrary computations on Bitcoin.

￮ Bitlayer aims to transform Bitcoin from a pure store of value to a more active and productive asset while providing a fast transaction experience and low transaction fees.

• Project Highlights

￮ Security: Bitlayer uses a fraud proof protocol based on BitVM to verify state transitions, ensuring security comparable to the Bitcoin base layer. 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 expansion solutions and is committed to expanding Bitcoins Internet and cryptocurrency user base. Through modular design, Bitlayer is able to achieve unlimited scalability while ensuring fast transaction confirmation speed 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 in-depth modifications. In the future, more virtual machines will be supported, such as CairoVM, SolVM, and MoveVM, providing users with a richer selection of on-chain applications.

BounceBit

According to the BounceBit white paper:

• Project Overview

￮ BounceBit is a restaking infrastructure built on BTC, secured by Mainnet Digital and Ceffu’s regulated custody.

￮ BounceBit chain is a PoS layer 1 chain based on Bitcoin Restaking. By having validators simultaneously stake BTC and BounceBit’s native tokens, it adopts a dual token system, achieving integration with Bitcoin’s native security and full Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility.

￮ The BounceBit ecosystem has rich infrastructure, such as bridges and oracles, and is also protected by heavily pledged BTC. Under an innovative centralized finance (CeFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi) structure framework, BounceBit empowers Bitcoin holders to earn income on multiple networks.

• Project Highlights

￮PoS Layer 1: Unlike Layer 2, which is attached to the Bitcoin main chain, BounceBit is self-contained and requires validators to stake the platforms native tokens and BTC, creating a dual-token security system. This approach not only enhances the security of the network, but also increases the intrinsic value of Bitcoin by enabling BTC to play an active role in network verification.

￮ Cross-chain interoperability: BounceBit supports interoperability with EVM-compatible chains, enabling the diversification of staked assets like BTCB (Bitcoin on the BNB chain) and WBTC (wrapped Bitcoin), enriching the use cases of staking BTC.

￮ Transparent centralized finance provides real returns: BounceBit uses Mainnet Digital’s custody services and Ceffu’s MirrorX technology to keep Bitcoin on-chain while ensuring liquidity and transparency of transactions through a T+1 settlement cycle for profits on centralized exchanges.

UTXO stack

According to the UTXO stack white paper:

• Project Overview

￮ UTXO Stack will be committed to expanding the Bitcoin ecosystem, helping project developers to start BTC Layer 2 based on the UTXO architecture with one click, and natively integrating RGB++ protocol capabilities, so that BTC and Stack parallel Layer 2 can achieve seamless interoperability without a cross-chain bridge, and can ensure the security of Layer 2 by staking BTC, CKB and BTC L1 assets.

￮ By providing a one-click launch service for UTXO BTC Layer 2, UTXO Stack aims to simplify the creation process of 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 markets demand for higher performance, greater scalability, and lower cost blockchain solutions.

• Project Highlights

￮ UTXO Stack attempts to leverage the security and reputation of Bitcoin as an endorsement to promote broader asset issuance and financial innovation on the Bitcoin blockchain. By creating application chains that can easily interoperate with BTC and other UTXO assets, UTXO Stack provides developers with a powerful tool to enable rapid development and deployment of their financial applications. In addition, by using the PoS (Proof of Stake) mechanism to provide security for these application chains, UTXO Stack is also trying to solve the challenges of Bitcoins PoW (Proof of Work) mechanism in energy consumption and efficiency.

Zeus network

According to the Zeus Network white paper:

• Project Overview

￮ Zeus Network is committed to bringing the next billion users into the Web3 ecosystem. Zeus Network builds cross-chain infrastructure by leveraging Solana. This is achieved 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) without permission on a bridge-less cross-chain infrastructure.

￮ Zeus Network’s first mission is to bring Bitcoin liquidity to Solana through its first dApp, APOLLO. Zeus Network is bridgeless in that liquidity providers on each chain do not receive backflow liquidity on the other chain, and the 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 a traditional blockchain bridge, the security risks of the bridge are avoided, making the cross-chain liquidity of assets safer. Apollo is a cross-chain bridge between BTC and Solana, bringing Bitcoin liquidity to Solana.

￮ Leverage Solana’s high performance: Building cross-chain infrastructure through Solana, the world’s fastest, most economical, and best-performing blockchain, enables fast and low-cost cross-chain transactions.

￮ Pluggable and programmable node network: The pluggable and programmable framework provided by Zeus Layer allows developers to easily integrate and create dApps that can seamlessly interoperate with Bitcoin and multiple future blockchains.

￮ Security and decentralization: Advanced encryption technology and fraud proof, as well as decentralized operation of distributed node networks, are used to ensure the security of transactions and the transparency and fairness of the system.

infrastructure

Monad

According to the Monad white paper:

• Project Overview

￮ Monad is a high-performance Ethereum-compatible layer-1 (L1) blockchain that aims to push the effective boundaries of decentralization and scalability by optimizing key areas.

￮ By introducing four core technology optimizations, including MonadBFT, Deferred Execution, Parallel Execution, and MonadDb, Monad has greatly improved the system throughput and achieved 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 and enjoy more efficient blockchain performance.

• Project Highlights

￮ Ultra-high performance and processing speed: For blockchain ecosystems that require large-scale daily active users and high-interaction applications, Monad provides the highest level of performance required to date, reaching 10,000 transactions per second, 1 second block time and finality.

￮ Ethereum ecosystem compatibility: Fully compatible with EVM bytecode, allowing applications developed on Ethereum to be migrated to Monad without any code modification; Ethereum RPC API is compatible, and users can use familiar tools (such as MetaMask, Etherscan) to seamlessly access Monad.

￮ MonadBFT: An improved version of the HotStuff consensus algorithm that implements an efficient pipeline consensus mechanism.

▪ Delayed Execution: By setting up a pipeline between consensus and execution, the execution budget is significantly increased.

▪ Parallel Execution: Leverages multi-core processing power to execute work, thereby increasing execution speed while maintaining consistency in transaction results.

▪ MonadDb: A high-performance state backend storage system optimized for SSDs, enabling efficient state updates and caching.

￮ Low hardware entry threshold and accessibility: Monad keeps the hardware requirements for running nodes within a reasonable range, ensuring a low participation threshold and wide accessibility.

Aptos

According to the Aptos white paper:

• Project Overview

￮ The top Layer 1 in the non-EVM public chain uses the Move language as the development language. Smart contract execution has always been a bottleneck limiting the throughput of the blockchain. Single-line execution severely limits the upper limit of its throughput. Aptos has developed the Block-STM smart contract parallel execution engine to improve the efficiency of transaction execution. The core team includes Mo Shaik and Avery Ching, who are former Meta team members and have rich experience in the traditional Internet field. Historical investors include A16Z, DragonFly, Brevan Howard, Franklin Templton, Tiger, Hashed, Multicoin, etc.

￮ Recently, Aptos Labs has established a new partnership with Microsoft, Brevan Howard, SK Telecom and Boston Consulting Group to develop Aptos Ascend, which aims to provide institutional clients with an on-chain digital asset management platform that supports increasing the liquidity of RWA-type assets globally.

• Project Highlights

￮Technological innovation and performance: Aptos is known for the novelty of its technology stack, including the AptosBFT v4 consensus mechanism, the Quorum Store memory pool protocol, the 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 achieve 30,000 transactions per second in a test environment and process more than 9 billion transactions during a specific event demonstrates its excellent performance.

￮ Security and Upgradability: Aptos pays special attention to security and upgradeability, using the Aptos Move language to enhance the security of smart contracts and allow frequent network upgrades to quickly deploy new technologies and fixes.

￮ Ecosystem Growth and Partnerships: Since its launch, Aptos has rapidly grown its ecosystem through key partnerships (including with Microsoft, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud and other well-known companies), funding programs and hackathons. The project has a particular focus on expanding its influence in the Asia-Pacific region, establishing partnerships with several well-known gaming companies and corporate groups, and promoting the development of DeFi, social media, and gaming and NFT applications.

￮ Market Adoption and Network Activity: Aptos has demonstrated strong market adoption by driving network activity through initiatives such as the Chingari social media platform, Pyth oracle integration, and Graffio’s one-day public art creation event. With an average daily transaction volume of over 475,000 and daily active addresses of over 72,000, Aptos demonstrates strong user engagement and network utility.

￮ Future-oriented technology roadmap: Aptos’ future technology roadmap, including plans for storage sharding, commitment to achieving a goal of 100,000 to 1 million transactions per second, and development of a new Aptos Move compiler, demonstrates its commitment as an innovative platform that continues to advance to adapt to the needs of future Web3.

Movement

According to the Movement white paper:

• Project Overview

￮ Movement Labs aims to solve the widespread smart contract vulnerabilities within the Ethereum ecosystem, while introducing a new execution environment that enables the system to process more than 30,000 transactions per second. Movement aims to combine smart contract security and parallelization with EVM liquidity and user base, introducing MoveVM to Ethereum through its flagship L2 and Rollup connected to Move Stack. By utilizing a fully EVM-compatible bytecode interpreter and Ethereum as a settlement method, Movement, as a ZK Layer 2, will enhance parallelization capabilities and smart contract security for the Ethereum ecosystem.

• Project Highlights

￮ Friendly development experience: Introducing MoveVM into Layer 2, providing a powerful Fractal translator to convert Solidity smart contracts into Move bytecode, enhancing the functionality and security of smart contracts, while providing a high degree of interoperability with other blockchain systems.

￮ Strong flexibility and scalability: M2s modular design abstracts the consensus layer from the execution layer, allowing each protocol layer to work independently and stay synchronized.

￮ High speed and low fee: Sub-second Finality is achieved through parallel Move-EVM and decentralized Sequencer, which is said to be able to reach

￮ High compatibility: EVM compatible, supports both aptos and sui move. Deeply connected with Cosmos, supports native USDC and Cosmos wallets.

StakeStone

According to the StakeStone white paper:

• Project Overview

StakeStone is a full-chain LST (Liquid Stake Token) liquidity protocol that aims to bring native staking income and liquidity to Layer 2 in a decentralized manner. StakeStone is highly scalable, supports various staking pools, and is compatible with the upcoming Restaking. At the same time, it has established a multi-chain liquidity market based on StakeStones native LST STONE, providing STONE users with more use cases and income opportunities.

• Project Highlights

￮ LST Liquidity Cross-Chain Market: StakeStone is committed to building a cross-chain market specifically for LST (liquidity pledge token) liquidity, connecting Ethereum and other blockchains. This provides the basis for the seamless transfer of assets between different blockchains, while solving the liquidity split between the mainnet and Layer 2 networks.

￮ OPAP Mechanism: The Optimized Portfolio and Allocation Proposal (OPAP) mechanism pioneered by StakeStone provides a decentralized solution for liquid staking. This enables users to deposit ETH and obtain STONE tokens whose value increases over time, thereby achieving strategic asset allocation and optimizing staking returns.

￮ Diversified applications and high efficiency: STONE is not just a token representing ETH staking, it can also be used as an equivalent asset of ETH in various DeFi, GameFi or NFTfi platforms. This diversified use case has greatly improved the practicality and attractiveness of STONE.

￮ LayerZero integration and cross-chain support: With LayerZero technology, STONE supports seamless transfer and price alignment between multiple blockchains, making it suitable for a wide range of networks and ecosystems such as Ethereum, Manta, Base, BNB Chain, Mantle, Linea, etc.

￮ Rapid growth of capital and market: Since its launch, StakeStone’s total locked value (TVL) has achieved rapid growth, reaching a peak of US$1.38 billion, demonstrating the market’s strong demand and trust in such solutions.

￮ Through these highlights, StakeStone not only provides users with stable staking returns, but also attempts to solve the fragmentation and efficiency problems in the existing blockchain ecosystem. It is a forward-looking and innovative staking solution.

Games and Apps

Cellula

According to the Cellula white paper:

• Project Overview

Cellula is a full-chain artificial life simulation strategy game that allows users to play Conways Game of Life through on-chain cellular automata. In the game, NFTs can reproduce, grow, evolve or die on the blockchain, creating an NFT Arena by turning each NFT into an autonomous organism.

• Project Highlights

￮ Full-chain game with unique gameplay. Cellula is a full-chain Conway Game of Life that uses a MUD engine. It simulates the Game of Life in a programming method similar to actual evolution. In the future, ERC 6551 will be used to enable NFT to be combined with various smart contracts.

￮ Role growth: Evolution of giving NFT autonomy. Traditional NFTs are empowered from top to bottom (creators assign value and send airdrops), while Cellula empowers creators by building games and giving NFTs growth and composability.

￮ Composability: Game metadata can be used as raw materials to combine with other NFTs. Similar to Lego, it can be combined with traditional NFTs or other items and given a special identity through genes.

UXLink

According to the UXLink white paper:

• Project Overview

￮ UXLINK is the Web3 social platform and infrastructure with the largest number of users, supporting users and developers to discover, distribute and trade crypto assets in a social and group manner.

￮ One year after the launch of UXLINK products, UXLINK has more than 5.7 million registered users, more than 100,000 groups, more than 1.2 million DAPP daily active users, and more than 300,000 daily active users on the chain. Currently, the number of daily active users on the chain ranks among the top three.

• Project Highlights

￮ Link To Earn. Different from other social products, UXLINK focuses on acquaintance relationships, which is a simulation of the social status of the real world. Through the Link To Earn acquaintance recommendation trust mechanism and the subversive Web3 group, it brings a new user connection method and organizational form, forming a unique protocol and data layer, which can give unique value to developers in the Web3 field.

￮ 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 Korea, South Asia, South America and Africa, and has accumulated rich and connected user data.

￮ UXLINK migrates and deepens real social relationships and scenarios, and innovates them in combination with the essence of Web3, integrating assets and social interaction. Because of its unique traffic and data, it also attracts a large number of partners willing to pay, forming a positive cycle between users and partners.

Matr1x

According to the Matr1x white paper:

• Project Overview

￮ Matr1x is a Web3 gaming platform. It implements a boutique strategy, develops its own game products and co-publishes them. It independently develops the middle platform protocol for Web3 games, helping more Web2 game products enter Web3.

￮ The first game Matr1x Fire is a FPS mobile game. Since its launch, it has accumulated 1.05 million registered users, more than 1.19 million game downloads, 490,000 UAWs, and 1.26 million transfers, currently ranking first in polygon.

• Project Highlights

￮ Incorporating e-sports elements naturally attracts young user groups. Currently, Matr1x has held more than 40 online and offline events around the world, covering more than 50 game communities, more than 20 countries and regions, with a total of more than 100,000 participants. It is currently the number one e-sports brand in the entire Web3 industry.

￮ Emphasize the value attribute of in-game assets, which is an asset attribute that has been verified in Web2. The core of the shooting category focuses on the trading of game accessories. For example, the classic game csgo in Web2 has a transaction volume of more than 38 billion US dollars per year, which has great potential. At present, Matr1x has successfully issued three sets of equity NFTs, with more than 800,000 addresses and a cumulative transaction volume of more than 150 million US dollars.

￮ The team members are from the worlds top companies, have many years of experience in the game and blockchain industry, have successfully developed and released a number of games, with a cumulative turnover of more than 30 billion RMB and more than 300 million users.

Debox

According to the Debox white paper:

• Project Overview

￮ DeBox is a DID-based Web3 community management tool. Users holding ERC-20 tokens and NFT users can join the corresponding groups without permission and use the lottery, proposal, voting and other functions provided by the product.

• Project Highlights

￮ Debox connects the user side and the community side, and is a bridge that meets the needs of both sides. On the community side, it is a community-driven management tool, including elections, voting, finances, events, raffles, airdrops, event evaluations, etc. On the user side, it provides equal, permissionless, and simple access to information portals for all users. Therefore, debox has a strong user base. At present, DAU 11K+, holder 90K+, 24241 communities, and most users are cryptocurrency novices from apps.

￮ AI and intent-centric, more than 100 AI robots driven by large models, including GC, transaction, search, etc., provide users with a good and seamless experience

￮ Deboxs current ecosystem is showing an organic growth trend. Currently, Deboxs transaction volume is more than 120 million from internal Dex, 59.1 million from innovative social assets, and the monthly net profit exceeds 80,000 US dollars.

Privasea.io

According to the Privasea white paper:

• Project Overview

￮ Privasea AI Network is an artificial intelligence processing system that focuses on data privacy and security. It uses Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) technology to perform calculations by encrypting data to ensure the confidentiality and security of sensitive information.

￮ Privasea AI network effectively solves the privacy protection and data security issues faced in AI data processing through its advanced fully homomorphic encryption technology and multi-level architecture design, while providing efficient and easy-to-use solutions to meet the needs of different users and scenarios.

• Project Highlights

￮ Privacy protection: Through fully homomorphic encryption technology, Privasea AI can analyze and process data without decrypting it. This means that even if the data is processed in a cloud environment or an untrusted computing environment, the users sensitive information is still effectively protected. In response to strict data protection regulations such as the EUs General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a privacy protection AI solution that complies with regulations is provided.

￮ Distributed AI computing: Privasea AI uses blockchain technology to incentivize and manage a distributed network consisting of multiple computing nodes to provide the necessary AI processing capabilities. This not only increases the availability of computing resources, but also improves the transparency and security of the system through decentralization.

￮ Rich application scenarios: By combining FHE and AI, Privasea AI has opened up a new path for privacy-preserving machine learning and artificial intelligence applications. The application scenarios cover multiple fields such as finance, medical care, and security supervision, providing a comprehensive solution that protects data privacy while fully utilizing the value of data.

risk warning:

This article is for reference only.

This article is not intended to provide (i) investment advice or investment recommendations; (ii) an offer or solicitation 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 fluctuate significantly or even become worthless. Please be responsible for understanding and complying with local applicable laws and regulations.

This article is sourced from the internet: OKX Ventures April Investment Monthly Report: Continue to focus on the construction of industry infrastructure such as Bitcoin ecology

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