In the tech industry, it’s said that down markets are the ideal moment to invest time and resources into development. And in the crypto and blockchain sector, the same goes. Whether developing a new product to meet anticipated demand or providing new upgrades to a platform’s user interface, the crypto bear market has cleansed the industry of many of its flawed and scammy projects—ushering in a new era of innovation and exciting use cases.
As optimism around a potential bull market next year spreads, let’s look at some of the most promising and exciting projects to watch in 2024.
Kima: Bridging blockchain and traditional fintech
Kima, known as the “Paypal for DeFi,” is an asset-agnostic, blockchain-based decentralized settlement protocol aiming to address fragmentation in both the mainstream finance and crypto spaces. Through Kima’s convenient SDK built for blockchain and Web2 apps, financial institutions can start bridging the gap between fiat and crypto. With Kima’s new financial primitive, the Smart Transaction, enables cross-ecosystem transactions without smart contracts.
Kima’s protocol is designed around direct money transfers through blockchain addresses and bank accounts. This eliminates the technical dependencies and vulnerabilities surrounding smart contracts while building a link between blockchain and traditional financial assets. Kima’s peer-to-peer payment and transfer protocol introduces a vast infrastructure that fosters seamless crypto-fiat payments.
Known as “Paypal for DeFi,” when Kima’s platform launches later next year, it will remove the need for an intermediary between crypto and fiat. As Kima’s platform aims to be a key infrastructure cornerstone in mainstream finance and crypto, it has already joined the FinSec Innovation Lab, a joint venture between Mastercard and Enel X to support promising projects that advance financial technology and cybersecurity.
Cardano: Enhanced staking
Cardano (ADA) has long found itself at the top of most crypto market price listings thanks to its massive TVL. And as one of the earliest proof-of-work blockchain networks, Cardano seems to be bouncing back nicely after a sluggish start to 2023.
The Cardano Foundation recently introduced a new staking mechanism that may provide it with a competitive edge and better user experience. Cardano demonstrated this mechanism by executing a transition on its mainnet to lower the minimum staking parameter from 340 ADA to 170 ADA.
As bullish vibes permeate the crypto sector, Cardano’s focus on improving the staking experience will make it stand out among DeFi enthusiasts and crypto newbies alike. Also, it doesn’t hurt that Google’s generative AI platform Bard selected ADA as a promising investment opportunity due to its strong technical foundations, emphasis on research and innovation, growing ecosystem, eco-friendliness, and strong community support.
tomi: Building the infrastructure for a decentralized web
tomi has quite the unique Web3 vision: To build an alternative, community-controlled internet ecosystem with privacy at its heart. As a relatively young DAO-led project, tomi already has several features—including tomiNet, a secure and encrypted network focused on promoting freedom of speech and access to uncensored information. tomi is currently in the middle of a domain auction process for top-tier names on its tDNS (tomi Domain Name System) platform, where users and businesses can bid to secure their .tomi addresses through May 2024.
With many other features such as tomiPay and Gems (a home for premium content creators and publishers), tomi announced in the spring it had raised $40 million in a funding round led by DWF Labs and Ticker Capital. More recently, the tomi developer team took the stage at last month’s Binance Blockchain Week in Istanbul to announce the launch of its tomiChain blockchain network. tomiChain, which will go live later in 2024, will enable multi-token transactions for sending and receiving multiple assets for the first time while providing the speed, scale, and reduced fees of a layer-2 with the highest degree of user control over their data through the data ownership protocol integration.
World Mobile: Connecting the unconnected via blockchain
While tomi aims to provide a decentralized alternative internet, World Mobile has a similar vision for the telecommunications industry. With almost three billion individuals without a steady internet connection, World Mobile’s blockchain-powered mobile network introduces a shared-economy model, which reduces the current operational and maintenance costs that traditional telecoms face—particularly in impoverished and isolated communities.
Its native token, WMT, plays a pivotal role in this sharing economy, rewarding EarthNode operators and token stakers for various transactions including calls, data usage, and wallet activities. Private entities and local entrepreneurs who own AirNodes receive rewards for connecting their communities and ensuring maintenance and maximum uptime.
World Mobile’s first case studies took place in Africa Tanzania where it successfully demonstrated its proof-of-concept, before expanding to Mozambique. World Mobile also recently launched in a few rural regions of the U.S., where it supported key progress in the establishment of World Mobile’s Core mobile network to facilitate an upcoming AirNodes Sales Platform launch. In October, World Mobile deployed its fully commercial network in Pakistan in partnership with Worldcall, a leading local telecom and multimedia service provider, to bring broadband connectivity to the country.
Tanssi: Streamlining appchain deployment
Tanssi is an appchain infrastructure protocol from Moondance Labs that removes the complexities of deploying application-specific blockchains. The protocol’s recently announced ContainerChains provides developers with immediate access to a wide set of infrastructure resources that include data services, key integrations, cross-chain communications, and more.
Backed by a long list of investors including JSquare, Borderless Capital, DFG, and Arrington Capital, Tanssi recently launched their testnet and already boasts more than 80 interested teams looking to deploy a chain through their protocol. With another 200-plus teams in the pipeline, the demand for Tanssi’s appchain infrastructure protocol stems from the convenient developer experience, security, interoperability, and cost efficiency.
By leveraging Tanssi’s permissionless and developer-oriented protocol, parachain builders can convert their visions into a working concept in under an hour. The Tanssi protocol is expected to launch during Q2 of 2024.
Solana: Reinforcing its ecosystem
Proof-of-stake blockchain Solana had a rougher-than-average 2022—a year defined by the start of a crypto bear market and numerous high-profile scandals. However, 2023 has been a completely different story. Solana (SOL) hit a yearly peak in TVL in late November, marking a massive increase of 211 percent since January.
As crypto enthusiasts anticipate a bull run in 2024, ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood stated in an interview with CNBC that “Ether was faster and cheaper than Bitcoin in the day—that’s how we got Ether. Solana is even faster and cost-effective than Ether.” Founded in 2020, the project is still young, despite already being a major player in the blockchain space, and will continue to attract leading developers from other blockchain networks.
A surge in the strength of altcoins and renewed optimism within the industry bodes well for the monolithic blockchain, as it has demonstrated several valuable use cases, assembled a talented group of developers, and is supported by a dedicated community that stuck with the project during the lows of 2022.
Spool: customizing DeFi products for financial institutions
Spool is a DAO focused on building a comprehensive and simplified infrastructure for DeFi products and services through a single user-friendly interface. As more and more financial institutions look to gain exposure to digital assets, Spool’s platform allows them to build tailor-made risk-managed DeFi products.
Just last month, Spool took a major step forward in its mission to empower institutions to leverage DeFi with the launch of its expansive V2 upgrade. Its expanded and rebuilt platform provides these institutions with the crucial tech infrastructure to cash in on the potential crypto and DeFi offer.
Financial institutions of all sizes can now leverage its impressive new features, including multi-asset smart vaults, liquid staking derivatives, advanced automation, and much more. Additional new features, along with interface updates enable institutions to build, manage, and explore DeFi with the highest degree of flexibility, risk reduction, and security.
Apeiron: Revolutionizing P2E NFT gaming
As the first-ever God Game with NFTs, Apeiron is preparing to shift from its demo version to a full beta release, slated for Q1 of 2024. Apeiron is part of a new wave of token-driven, play-and-earn NFT games. The game’s tri-token system utilizes governance, play-to-earn, and alliance tokens in unison to create a dynamic economy while putting Apeiron’s unique NFT collections in the hands of the players.
There is a new daily check-in system on Apeiron’s NFT marketplace granting free in-game and on-chain rewards. A recent partnership with the Ronin Chain signifies the unofficial countdown to Apeiron’s token and game launch. Its player-vs-environment demo is already live on Epic Games and their new player-vs-player mode will begin closed beta testing alongside the Ronin migration beginning on December 18.
There will be a streamed invitational tournament in January to allow players to get a feel for the gameplay ahead of the launch.
Conclusion:
All of these promising projects are proving that Web3 has evolved through innovative blockchain use cases, and that there are more than enough reasons to be optimistic about a 2024 bull run.
Image by Kohji Asakawa from Pixabay