Few industries can lay claim to having more innovative startups and entrepreneurs than Web3, which is a space that’s bursting with new ideas. The momentum of Web3 has accelerated hard, with thousands of the world’s smartest technologists scrambling to build a newer, improved version of the internet that’s more open and decentralized.
There are numerous Web3 dApps up and running today that are pushing the boundaries of what technologies like blockchain, smart contracts, NFTs and AI can do, and many have the potential to have a hugely positive impact on the world. Yet mainstream adoption is still some distance away from becoming a reality. Fortunately, there are a number of Web3 projects looking to change that.
1. Zeus Network – advancing Bitcoin interoperability
An innovative new project that aims to leverage the strengths of both Bitcoin and Solana, Zeus Network wants to build a decentralized layer for blockchain interoperability that supersedes all others. It plans to do this by combining the rapid transaction processing speeds of Solana with Bitcoin’s industry-leading security and vast liquidity.
Zeus Network has built a Layer-1 blockchain that integrates the best bits of Bitcoin and Solana to address concerns around the scalability and security of decentralized networks. In doing this, it has created a robust platform for decentralized application developers that want to tap into the potential of every blockchain.
To do this, Zeus has built a novel architecture that includes the Zeus Node and Solana Virtual Machine or SVM. These two components work together to manage peer-to-peer transactions, execute state functions and ensure the network runs rapidly and smoothly in a decentralized way. The Zeus Node is what facilitates the core capabilities of Zeus Network, such as peer-to-peer interactions, broadcasting and verifying transactions. Meanwhile the SVM takes care of the state-related functionalities, and enables the seamless integration of numerous dApps built atop of Zeus.
By connecting Bitcoin to Solana, Zeus becomes a platform for developers to build Bitcoin-native dApps that can operate at blazing fast speeds. It acts as a decentralized and bridgeless communication layer between the two chains, supporting value transfer between Bitcoin, Solana and other blockchains.
Another key element of Zeus is the Zeus Program Library, which provides a supporting layer for developers to create cryptocurrencies and NFTs that can interact with Bitcoin and Solana. Zeus’s APOLLO is a cross-chain liquid staking protocol that became the first dApp to launch on the ZPL, giving users a way to wrap BTC as a ZPL asset and stake it on Solana’s blockchain. It’s working on various other initiatives too, including a way to bridge Ordinals and Runes to Solana, and a protocol for borrowing and lending BTC and Solana assets across both networks.
2. MANTRA – a compliant platform for tokenized real-world assets
Looking to make a splash in the nascent real-world tokenized assets (RWAs) scene, MANTRA has been busy laying the groundwork required for billions of dollar’s worth of physical assets to be traded on-chain.
As MANTRA explains, RWAs are a way to represent physical, real-world assets such as real estate, stocks and shares, bonds, commodities, foreign exchange, debts, invoices, bottles of fine wine and luxury artworks on chain. MANTRA’s mission is to bring the world’s entire investing and trading activity onto the blockchain, which has unique advantages. For instance, by trading assets on the blockchain, it’s possible to “fractionalize” them. As an example, a luxury penthouse apartment costing $10 million could be split into 10 million tokens, each one representing a $1 share of ownership in that property.
By fractionalizing real-world assets, MANTRA is making them more accessible. It means more investors can enter the market, buying a small share of something that couldn’t easily be shared between individuals before.
Blockchain also means lower trading costs, as it forms the foundation of a decentralized trading arena in which no middleman or paperwork is required, meaning much smaller fees are involved.
While there are numerous projects aiming to make RWAs a reality, MANTRA sets itself apart, having built the first Layer-1 blockchain that’s compliant by design. In addition, it has created various tools that simplify the process of tokenizing any asset and effectively legalizing it. These are important capabilities, as they make it much easier for institutional investors to trade RWAs with confidence, while helping those without blockchain experience explore the concept.
MANTRA’s focus on compliance includes integrating transaction monitoring as a basic primitive within its infrastructure. It ensures that every asset is fully compliant with the latest Anti-Money Laundering regulations. It also integrates decentralized identities with Souldbound NFTs, so every user can pass its KYC checks in a private way, without revealing their identity to anyone.
MANTRA has had a great start to the year, raising $11 million in funding back in March, following that with the launch of its incentivized testnet, ahead of the mainnet launch of its platform in the coming months.
3. Qubic – a decentralized, blockchain-based network for AI
Qubic is building a blockchain-based network for artificial intelligence applications, as an alternative to highly centralized, “black box” AI models like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
It’s one of the main proponents of what’s known as “decentralized AI”, and it has built a dedicated blockchain network that employs quorum-based computation through a novel “Useful Proof-of-Work” consensus mechanism. Unlike Bitcoin’s traditional PoW, which wastes all of its computational power on essentially meaningless number-crunching tasks to reach consensus, Qubic’s uPoW enables participating nodes to do something useful, providing low-cost computational resources for the AI applications that live on its network.
The electrical energy that’s used to mine QUBIC tokens and verify transactions can be recycled and essentially rented out to AI developers who need low-cost resources to train their AI models. In this way, Qubic can facilitate cloud processing that’s far more affordable than traditional methods, such as cloud-based GPUs.
Qubic enhances AI intelligence through an initiative known as Aigarth, which is a special AI program that’s integrated with its blockchain. Through Aigrath, miners are able to contribute their computational resources for AI training tasks such as data analysis, image recognition, natural language processing and problem-solving. By performing these tasks, the network slowly learns and accumulates knowledge that can be shared with AI dApps, leading to the creation of “general artificial intelligence” applications that can teach themselves without any human intervention.
The project has made a lot of progress in a short space of time. Since launching in 2022, Qubic’s network has grown to encompass more than 500,000 miners who each dedicated computational power, and its QUBIC token has grown to achieve a market cap of more than $1 billion. It has built a transparent database that records all of the AI training tasks completed by its network of nodes, which can be accessed by any developer.
Other achievements include the launch of its QX decentralized exchange platform, which brings more liquidity into the QUBIC economy, and the growth of a thriving community that numbers more than 43,000 members on Discord, 67,000 followers on X, and 10,000 on Telegram.
4. Prom – scaling blockchain to support mass adoption of Web3
Prom is one of the highest-profile projects leveraging Zero-Knowledge Rollups as a means to help blockchain networks to support mass adoption. While newer blockchains can process transactions far more rapidly than some of the older ones, the vast majority of crypto liquidity is stuck on archaic chains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, and mass adoption is contingent on our ability to scale them, too.
Rising to this challenge is Prom, which has created a modular zkEVM Layer-2 network that supports Etheruem and EMV-compatible networks, as well as non-EVM chains. It has the ambitious goal of making every blockchain network interoperable and scalable, including Bitcoin, and it’s doing this by taking ZK-rollups to the next level.
Prom zkEVM works on the basis of building bridges between different networks, submitting a “proof of transaction” to any two chains that are involved in a digital asset swap.
Built on the Polygon network, Prom zkEVM takes advantage of a technology known as “Recursive STARKs”, which allows it to use zkSNARKS to anonymize every transaction it processes and finalize them instantly at low costs. It’s one of the best performing and economical blockchain interoperability solutions around, and it’s notable for its seamless integration that reduces headaches for developers. Moreover, it leverages Ethereum’s base chain to provide a storing measure of security and immutability.
Prom zkEVM is one of the newer blockchain scaling solutions in an extremely crowded scene, but its progress sets it apart from many of its rivals. Within two weeks of its testnet launch in April 2024 it had more than 100,000 active wallets, and numerous high-profile projects moved quickly to expand to its platform.
The project doesn’t just focus on interoperability though, as it’s also working to promote mass adoption of blockchain in more general ways. For instance, it takes advantage of the ERC-4337 standard’s account abstraction features, making it possible for developers to simplify dApp onboarding with traditional email-based logins and account recovery processes.