1. Meta background public chain, privacy public chain, modular blockchain and Layer 2 public chain are more popular;
2. The new public chain has outstanding scalability, with TPS ranging from thousands to tens of thousands;
3. The ecological development of the new public chain is still in its early stages, and the number of ecological users does not yet have a competitive advantage, but there are certain Alpha opportunities;
4. Modular blockchain is an important trend in the development of public chains.
Public chains are an important part of Web3 infrastructure. New public chains continue to emerge, aiming to provide developers and users with a better Web3 experience and strive to break the blockchain "impossible triangle".
The "impossible triangle" of blockchain refers to the inability to achieve security, decentralization, and scalability at the same time. Through technological innovation and blockchain iteration, the new public chain is striving to achieve all three.
Among the new public chains, the more popular ones are the Meta-background public chains represented by Aptos, the Layer2 new public chains represented by zkSync, the privacy public chains represented by Aleo, and the modular blockchains represented by Celestia.
These new public chains provide high-quality solutions in terms of scalability, security, compatibility, privacy, decentralization, etc., and have gained the attention and support of the encryption community and top investment banks such as a16z and Paradigm.
At present, new public chains have obvious deficiencies in ecological development, token value capture capabilities, and the status of the public chain landscape, which need further observation. The new public chains are now experiencing the growth process of public chains such as Solana and Avalanche, and we can expect the Alpha benefits behind them and ambush ecological opportunities in advance.
Development status of new public chains
There has always been no shortage of topics in the public chain track. The emergence of new public chains not only provides new solutions for decentralization, scalability, security, etc., but also brings new focus to the crypto community and investment institutions.
A number of new public chains have emerged recently, among which the more discussed ones are the Meta-background public chains represented by Aptos, the modular blockchain represented by Celestia, and the new Layer2 public chains represented by zkSync.
New public chains focus on high performance, high scalability, EVM compatibility, privacy protection, etc., and have many innovation points at the technical level. However, the ecology of most new public chains has not yet developed. Ecological development, actual network performance, user volume, etc. to be observed.
(Part of the new public chain data)
(1) Meta background public chain and new Layer 2 public chain are leading the way
Evaluated from the perspectives of ecological development, financing, development progress, etc., Meta background public chains and new Layer 2 public chains occupy first-mover advantages in the competition of new public chains.
1. Meta background public chain
Meta background public chains include Aptos, Sui and Linera, all of which were co-founded by former Meta engineers and use the Move programming language. It is worth mentioning that the Move programming language is a smart contract programming language developed by Meta and was previously used in the development of its stable currency project Libra.
Among the three public chains, Aptos has the fastest development and ecological progress. Aptos is a high-performance public chain focusing on security, scalability and upgradeability. Aptos launched the Incentive Test Network (Phase 2) on July 1, and announced 30 ecological projects in July. Project types include DEX, wallets, liquidity protocols, NFT markets, etc. The ecosystem has begun to take shape.
The development of Aptos has attracted the attention of investment institutions. Aptos has completed two rounds of large-scale financing this year, with the total amount of the two rounds of financing reaching US$350 million. Investment institutions include FTX Ventures, Jump Crypto, a16z, and Tiger Global.
Sui is the only public chain among the three public chains that issues Tokens. The functions of SUI include staking/protecting the network, transaction fees, governance, and network circulation assets. Node staking and Token empowerment are relatively complete among the three public chains.
2. New Layer2 public chain
Among the Layer2 public chains, Arbitrum and Optimism, which use Optimistic Rollup, have a leading advantage, and their development progress and ecological development are faster than those of Layer2 public chains such as zkSync and StarkNet. With the expansion of the zkSync and StarkNet ecosystems, the attention paid to the two in the Layer2 track has increased, and they have become the most complete ecosystems among the new public chains.
In terms of the number of ecological projects, the zkSync ecosystem currently has over 110 projects, and the StarkNet ecosystem currently has over 80 projects, ranking the top two among the 30 new public chains counted.
Among the new Layer2 public chains, the zkEVM chain is worthy of attention. Both zkSync and Scroll use zkEVM technology. zkEVM not only ensures extremely high security, but is also compatible with EVM, reducing the difficulty of migration of Ethereum ecological projects.
2. Most new public chains are still in the early stages of development
The number of products and ecological projects of new public chains is not large. Except for StarkNet, Evmos, and zkSync, which have a considerable number of ecological projects, the number of ecological projects of other public chains is less than 50. Among the 30 public chains counted, ecological projects cannot be found in 18 public chains.
The development progress of most new public chains is still at the completion of core technology development and test network stages, and the number of network node pledges and users is not large yet. The official public chain websites provide a relatively rich set of use cases, providing developers with a reference for application construction and migration.
(III) Hot topics: privacy, modular blockchain, capacity expansion, Cosmos ecosystem, public chain using Move programming language
Among the 30 new public chains, the public chains are mainly concentrated in the following directions: privacy, modular blockchain, capacity expansion, Cosmos-based public chains, and public chains using the Move programming language.
1. Privacy public chain
There are 5 new privacy public chains compiled: Aleph Zero, Aztec, Aleo, Iron Fish, and Anoma. Through technologies such as zero-knowledge proofs, privacy public chains can protect users’ transactions, wallets and other information, and improve users’ Web3 application experience.
Among these privacy public chains, Aztec, Aleo, and Iron Fish are the most discussed. Aztec is a Layer 2 privacy public chain, which is unique in the Layer 2 track. Aleo and Iron Fish are both in a16z's investment portfolio and are leaders in the privacy track.
2. Modular blockchain
Modular blockchain refers to breaking down the three components of blockchain: the execution layer, consensus layer, and data availability layer, and optimizing each layer.
This picture of modular blockchain includes many new public chains. The execution layer is Layer2 network. The new public chains at the consensus layer include Aptos, Sui, Celestia, and Evmos. The data availability layer includes Polygon Avail, a data availability solution launched by Polygon.
The most discussed modular blockchain is Celestia. Celestia is the first modular blockchain network that distinguishes different modules between the consensus layer and the execution layer, allowing developers to choose the execution environment to develop and deploy Dapps.