The recent turnaround within the crypto market has everyone’s heads turning around. Many people are now eager to explore and trade crypto and other decentralized finance opportunities.
So, with so much excitement going around, here are 4 DeFi chains to watch in 2023. But bear in mind that caution is highly advised, given the volatile state of the market.
Canto (CANTO)
Canto is a layer-1, permissionless blockchain that operates the Ethereum Virtual Machine. It’s a part of Cosmos network of apps, services, and blockchains and provides their native stablecoin, NOTE. The developers of Canto affirm that their ecosystem was developed to deliver the promises of DeFi. Canto was created via grassroots efforts by DeFi community proponents, including Scott Lewis, the co-founder of Slingshot.
As a relatively new crypto, many crypto enthusiasts on Twitter have already noticed the talk surrounding Canto in recent times. This is due to the significant price hike Canto’s native asset saw and their blooming DeFi ecosystem. It has now reportedly reached an ATH (all-time high) at around $170 million. Compared to big players like BNB, Tron, or Ethereum, this may appear relatively low. However, it’s impressive growth and worth monitoring.
Users should be well-aware that Canto has around 5 native DeFi protocols. Their Canto Dex covers over 60% of their entire TVL. Another major project is Canto Lending, with about $58 million, while the remaining projects come under a million each. Given all these establishments, there is room for growth if developers consider the network feasible for such projects.
Cryptoasset investing is highly volatile and unregulated in some EU countries. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.
Cardano (ADA)
Cardano is a decentralized PoS (proof of stake) blockchain designed to serve as a more efficient alternative to PoW (proof of work) networks. Their native crypto ADA is named after Ada Lovelace, who is considered the first programmer. ADA is utilized within their blockchain's proof of stake consensus mechanism. It’s offered as a type of reward for work completed by users for the Cardano blockchain in a stake pool.
Many people actually see Cardano as a highly undervalued alt-crypto. Although it has over a billion market cap, it’s still behind within the decentralized finance zone. Moreover, its TVL shockingly remains under $120 million, despite being a major network. As Cardano supports staking and smart contracts, it should be a much more popular avenue for DeFi protocols. Strangely enough, this isn’t the case. However, things may perhaps take a turn.
Although Cardano has around 17 decentralized finance protocols, which is more than Canto, Cardano still needs to recover from the $50 million TVL gap. But, one significant redeeming factor is that out of the 17 protocols, 13 have over a million TVL, therefore, confirming growth.
Cryptoasset investing is highly volatile and unregulated in some EU countries. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.
Aptos (APT)
Like Ethereum, Aptos is a PoS, layer-1 blockchain supporting decentralized applications and smart contracts. The world-class tech team backing Aptos is the same team that helped develop Meta’s blockchain project. The platform has also raised over $300 million in venture capital financing.
But Aptos was launched right before the collapse of FTX and immediately faced a rocky start. Regardless of it, the bullish argument is clear for Aptos. It’s basically like Ethereum, except it can do everything cheaper and faster (theoretically). For instance, think about the transaction processing speeds. Theoretically, Aptos can process 150K transactions in a second. Before the merge, Ethereum only processed 10-15 transactions in a second.
Despite the rocky start, Aptos’ launch had many speculators and investors excited since the beginning. Its APT currency has even met a new ATH in recent weeks. But there’s much potential left to explore in terms of decentralized finance. After all, the network won’t be doing much with just under $75 million in TVL.
That said, Aptos’ TVL is steadily rising, making around a visible goal of $100 million. Since the extension of PancakeSwap to Aptos, things have moved rather aggressively. Two major DeFi protocols currently on this network are AUX Exchange and PancakeSwap. They made up about $11.87 million and $36.31 million in TVL. What’s even more interesting is that Aptos carries a liquid staking solution in Tortuga, holding over $10 million in liquidity. This protocol noted a TVL gain of 254% in just a month, thus contributing to the overall TVL of Aptos.
Cryptoasset investing is highly volatile and unregulated in some EU countries. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.
Fantom (FTM)
Fantom is a type of smart and contract-supporting blockchain powered through its native FTM token. Fantom launched its main net in 2019 following an increase of $49 million. The Fantom blockchain achieves its speed via DAG (directed acyclic graph) to some extent. This is where the blockchain transaction history is shown as a “hashgraph,” which is a blockchain hash craft. It’s pretty similar to the tech that powers the Hedera Hashgraph.
Another one of Fantom’s innovations is Lachesis, a leaderless consensus mechanism. This mechanism is a PoS variant called aBFT (asynchronous byzantine fault tolerant). The advantage of this is it can operate without hitches even if a 3rd of transaction data is fraudulent. The Fantam network was one of DeFi's powerhouses back in 2021 and 2022. It held a pretty dominant position and even hit a TVL of over $15 billion at a certain point.
Unfortunately, the network observed almost all the projects shut down by Andre Cronje, therefore causing a collapse in their TVL (Total Value Locked). Despite no apparent changes in TVL since 2022, the network faced a pretty strong rebound over the past months. Several protocols, such as Equalizer Exchange and Tarot, noted their TVL gain at over 250%. Additionally, established protocols such as Beefy, SpookySwap, and Giest Finance observed a healthy capital influx. Therefore, Fanta reclaimed their TVL of $1 billion again. Sustaining this growth can be challenging, given the market uncertainty. However, as of now, things are looking pretty good for Fantom.
Cryptoasset investing is highly volatile and unregulated in some EU countries. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.