OKX Ventures Q3 report: still focusing on BTC, ETH, Ethereum, AI

I. About Industry Insights

In terms of macro-control, the Fed's interest rate cut brought favorable information at the macro level, benefiting various decentralized finance protocols. The Fed cut interest rates significantly by 50 basis points in September, bringing the federal funds interest rate to between 4.75% and 5%, resulting in short-term fluctuation, but BTC's long-term prospects remain robust. As the global financial system deepens its reliance on currency expansion, BTC, as a global asset independent of central bank policy, continues to attract increasing interest, with spot ETF net inflows totaling $21.3 billion.

ETH mainnet data remains stable, and the upgrade of Pectra is expected to enhance the functionality, security, and efficiency of the network. The average daily active users on-chain are 480,000, with a daily transaction volume of 1.2 million. The overall utilization rate of USDC, USDT, and DAI on major lending platforms has soared to 87%, reaching the highest level since late June 2024. With the rise in Decentralized Finance yields, interest rate cuts are expected to restart the encryption credit market and promote the vigorous development of on-chain activities.

**On the ecological level of public chains, the performance of major public chain data represented by SUI is impressive, and more innovations are waiting to be discovered. TVL has exceeded 1.4 billion US dollars, DEX's daily volume has reached 180 million US dollars, and daily volume and active Address numbers have reached new highs. The LiquidityprotocolTVL led by NAVI Protocol has exceeded 500 million US dollars, and the leading DEX Cetus is among the top 10 in the entire chain DEX volume, with a single-week volume exceeding 1 billion US dollars. The mainstream asset volume of SUI ecosystem is steadily rising, and the volume of Memecoin and community assets has also increased significantly. Therefore, we are also optimistic about projects like aPriori, representing parallel blockchains and their ecology, with Monad as a representative.

Meme " Supercycle " concept brings more attention, bringing new variables to AI development, and entertaining IP attracts more attention. The total Market Cap of AI Memecoin has exceeded 2 billion US dollars, and the average volume of Memecoin has risen more than 5 times compared to last year. The craze for Terminals of Truth and GOAT brings new use cases for AI-generated content, meme culture, and speculative market behavior, driving Solana's daily on-chain transactions to exceed 4.5 million and the peak of 6.9 million daily active users, and the DEX strongly related to Meme sets a new high for fees.

2. OKX Ventures Q3 Investment Projects Overview

OKX Ventures covers investment tracks in Q3, including the BTC ecosystem, Ethereum, AI, blockchain data platforms, etc. It has participated in the investment of projects such as zkLink, Monad, aPriori, Space and Time, and Prodia. Here are the details of the projects.

1**,**zkLink

zkLink is a multi-chain Decentralized Finance infrastructure based on Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) technology, aiming to solve the issues of Liquidity dispersion and high Transaction Cost in the current blockchain ecosystem. It achieves seamless connection and Liquidity aggregation between Ethereum and its Layer 2 network by building an aggregated Layer 3 zkEVM network (zkLink Nova).

As the first aggregated Layer 3 zkEVM network, zkLink Nova solves the Liquidity fragmentation problem on ETH's L2, allowing DApps to seamlessly deploy across multiple L2s. It provides a custom extension engine for high-performance ZK applications, supporting various use cases, including Spot trading, Derivatives trading, and Non-fungible Token trading.

The main problem that this project aims to solve:

• Cross-Chain InteractionLiquidity aggregation, seamless multi-chain interaction: zkLink simplifies the Cross-Chain Interaction transaction process by connecting different L1 and L2 networks through its protocol, allowing users to freely trade on different Blockon-chain without the need to switch networks or Wallet frequently.
• Rich ecological projects: zkLink has cooperated with multiple projects, forming a rich ecological network, attracting a large number of users to participate in its Decentralized Finance activities.
• Innovative technical solution: Combining ZK-Rollup and the Oracle Machine network, zkLink provides an efficient and secure Cross-Chain Interaction mechanism, greatly improving the efficiency of ecosystem integration.
• Improve user experience, promote the development of the Decentralization financial ecosystem, and become an important bridge connecting different blockchains.

2**,**Monad

Monad is a Layer 1 blockchain designed to provide high performance and scalability. It supports 10,000 transactions per second, with a block time of 1 second and single confirmation finality. Monad is compatible with the existing Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), allowing developers to migrate and use existing applications and libraries with ease.

The low hardware requirements of Monad allow ordinary consumer-grade hardware to run Nodes, providing a feasible path for Decentralization. In addition, the design of MonadDB stores most of the state in SSD instead of RAM, thereby reducing the operating costs of Nodes and improving scalability.

Project Features:

• High Performance: Monad provides 10,000 transactions per second, ensuring a smooth user experience.
• Low fees: Almost zero Money Laundering, allowing applications to scale massively.
• Quick confirmation: 1 second block time and single confirmation mechanism improve transaction efficiency.
• EVM Compatible: 100% EVM compatible, supporting applications in the existing Ethereum ecosystem.
• Scalable Decentralization: Low hardware requirements enable more users to participate in the network, promoting the process of Decentralization.
• Innovative Execution Model: Adopting optimistic parallel execution and asynchronous execution to effectively improve transaction processing capabilities.

3**、**aPriori

aPriori is a MEV infrastructure and liquid staking protocol built specifically for the era of parallel execution, natively implemented on the Monad platform. The project aims to optimize the processing efficiency of blockchain transactions through innovative block space auction mechanisms, thereby reducing the occurrence of MEV-induced junk trading behavior. By ensuring that block producers are aligned with network objectives, aPriori enhances user experience and overall network efficiency.

The main problem that this project aims to solve:

• Block Space Auction: Due to the limited nature of Block space and the monopoly of Block producers in transaction ordering, aPriori introduces the Block Space Auction mechanism. This mechanism transparentizes the true economic value of transactions through competitive bidding, thereby improving the efficiency of resource allocation.
• Minimalizing Garbage Trades: aPriori's auction mechanism reduces the occurrence of garbage trades caused by MEV by changing the dominant strategy of searchers. This design ensures the orderliness and predictability of transaction execution, enhancing user experience.
• Incentive Compatibility: In the post-MEV era, aPriori's auction mechanism ensures incentive compatibility, ensuring that Money Laundering is based on economic value rather than private assessment of block producers, thereby optimizing user experience.
• Transparency and Fairness: By introducing competitive bidding, aPriori ensures the transparency of the transaction processing and reduces the possibility of unfair practices (such as front running).

4**、**Space and Time

Space and Time is a data warehouse for Decentralization, designed specifically for blockchain applications. The project was founded in 2022 with the aim of providing a next-generation data platform to meet the needs of dApps, Decentralized Finance (DeFi), and other projects requiring powerful analytical capabilities. Space and Time combines enterprise-level SQL and APIs, enabling users to seamlessly integrate and analyze on-chain and off-chain data in a single query.

Supports multi-chain operations, allowing users to easily access and analyze data across multiple Block chains. By introducing SQL proof technology, Space and Time ensures the security, integrity, and transparency of data without compromising performance.

The main features of this project:

• Decentralization Architecture: Space and Time is the first Web3 native data warehouse, completely Decentralization, ensuring the security and privacy of user data.
• Enterprise-level SQL and API: Users can use familiar SQL commands and tools for querying and loading data, simplifying the data processing workflow.
• Multi-chain Support: The platform allows users to seamlessly access and analyze data across multiple blockchains, enhancing flexibility and scalability.
• SQL Proof Technology: This technology not only ensures the security of data, but also maintains its integrity and transparency, providing confidence to users.
• Real-time data processing: supports high-capacity real-time transaction processing, while utilizing column storage and GPU acceleration for large-scale dataset analysis.
• Customizable dashboard: The platform provides dynamic visualization function, users can customize the dashboard according to their own brand needs, and automatically generate charts and visual content.

5**、**Prodia

Prodia is an innovative platform that focuses on artificial intelligence and Distributed Cloud Computing, aiming to provide image and music generation services through its powerful APIs. The platform utilizes advanced machine learning models, particularly Stable Diffusion technology, to convert text into high-quality images. In addition, Prodia has also built a distributed graphics processing unit (GPU) network to provide efficient cloud computing services at lower costs, supporting various application scenarios. Prodia not only provides users with advanced AI tools, but also promotes innovation and development of cloud computing services.

The main features of this project:

• AI content generation capability: Prodia provides various models to achieve efficient conversion from text to image through the API, meeting users' needs for high-quality content generation.
• Distributed Cloud Computing: Using a distributed GPU network, Prodia can provide powerful computing capabilities at a lower cost, adapting to projects of different scales.
• Diverse application scenarios: The platform is not only suitable for image generation, but also extends to areas such as music generation, providing creators with more flexibility and choices.
• User-friendly API: Prodia's API is designed to be simple and easy to use, allowing developers to quickly integrate its functionality and improve development efficiency.
• Web3 Infrastructure: Combining Web3 technology, Prodia provides Decentralization services, enhancing data security and user privacy protection.

III. Conclusion

Looking at these changes in Q3, OKX Ventures is very optimistic about the market outlook. In macro terms, the interest rate cut is a major Favourable Information, Ethereum continues to innovate, on-chain data reaches new highs, the public chain ecosystem represented by SUI, and the cultural innovation brought by MEME all provide sustained momentum for the industry. This quarter, we focus on projects with strategic potential, which not only align with the rising opportunities in the market, but also demonstrate unique competitive advantages in their respective fields.

Whether it's BTC's re-pledge and Decentralized Finance applications, Cross-Chain Interaction, Liquidity integration, or the improvement of blockchain performance and optimization of data processing, these projects are driving technological breakthroughs and expanding application scenarios. In addition, we continue to see prospects for AI-generated content and distributed computing, which will provide new impetus for the innovative development of the industry in the future.

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Risk Warning and Disclaimer

This article is for reference only. This article represents the author's views and does not represent the position of OKX and the above institutions. This article is not intended to provide (i) investment advice or investment recommendations; (ii) offers or solicitations to buy, sell, or hold digital assets; (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. We do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of such information. Holding digital assets (including stablecoins and NFTs) involves high risks and may experience significant Fluctuation. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for you based on your financial situation. For your specific situation, please consult your legal/tax/investment professionals. You are responsible for understanding and complying with relevant local laws and regulations.