Metaplex is a decentralized protocol for the creation, commerce and use of digital assets on the Solana blockchain. Metaplex provides utility programs like Packs, Fusion, “Entangled” and Encrypted NFTs. Programs like Gumdrop and Hydra facilitate the distribution of tokens.
The Metaplex protocol has four components.
1. The Digital Asset Standard defines the metadata structure for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), enabling interoperability across all participants in the Solana NFT ecosystem, including NFT projects, individual NFTs, wallets, marketplace, dApps, and other protocols.
2 The Metaplex Program Library (MPL) includes multiple infrastructural protocols providing on-chain functionality for the creation, sale, purchase or trading of NFTs.
3. Advanced Developer Tools and SDKs streamline working with Metaplex, abstracting away complexity that makes blockchain development inaccessible to many. This is a key reason Metaplex is the preferred starting point for many developers getting started in the Solana ecosystem.
4. MPLX is a utility and governance token for the Metaplex Protocol. Token holders steer the direction and evolution of the protocol through the Metaplex DAO, delivering on the promise of a decentralized and community-owned creator platform.


Metaplex

SolFlare

Backpack

Phantom

Solana

dogwifhat

Jupiter

Pyth Network

Helium

Raydium

Helium Mobile

cat in a dogs world

SLERF

Orca

Jito

Shadow Token

Access Protocol

io.net

Staika

Egypt Cat

Costco Hot Dog

LumiChill

PunkAI

Loopy

Neon EVM

Jito Network is a major contributor to the Solana ecosystem through its JitoSOL liquid staking pool, and its collection of MEV products.

Users can exchange their SOL for JitoSOL. In return, holders maintain SOL’s liquidity and DeFi opportunities while earning yield from staking. JitoSOL uniquely provides its holders with additional rewards from transaction revenue associated with MEV extraction on Solana.

Maximum extractable value (MEV) describes profit opportunities attributable to the specific order of transaction execution. For example, a large swap on Orca can lower the pool’s price below that of Raydium or Serum. Traders will race to profit from that price difference and this arbitrage is considered MEV.

The Jito Foundation was created to minimize the negative impacts of MEV, equitably distribute the profits and increase transparency. Jito published an open source validator client designed to create a competitive market for MEV extraction. The client enables auctions within each block for the opportunity to capture that block’s MEV. Traders submit bids, and the highest bidders within each block can harvest available MEV.

Aleph.im is an open-source crosschain network featuring decentralized database including file storage, computing, and a decentralized identity (DID) framework. Aleph.im’s core mission is to help decentralized apps and protocols strip off the centralized parts of their stack, achieving a fully decentralized architecture. You can think of aleph.im as a decentralized AWS or firebase. Aleph.im is focused on supercharging the DeFi ecosystem.

Aleph.im

Forta

Raydium is an automated market maker (AMM) and liquidity provider built on the Solana blockchain for the Serum decentralized exchange (DEX). Unlike any other AMMs, Raydium provides on-chain liquidity to a central limit orderbook meaning that funds deposited into Raydium are converted into limit orders which sit on Serum’s orderbooks. This gives Raydium LPs access to all of Serum’s order flow as well as their existing liquidity.
RAY is the native utility token used for:

Staking to earn protocol fees

Staking to receive IDO allocations

Governance votes on protocol decisions

Bonfida

Arcblock

MiL.k

Akash Network

Axelar claims to deliver “secure cross-chain communication for Web3.” The project provides a decentralized network and tools to help builders of decentralized applications (dApps) with seamless cross-chain communication through its protocol suite, tools and APIs.

Axelar features three core components – a decentralized network, a software development kit of protocols and APIs, and a set of gateway smart contracts for cross-chain connectivity.

Powered by a decentralized network of validators, anyone can join the network, build on it, or use it. Apps builders can interact with a simple API atop a permissionless network that routes messages and ensures network security via proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.

AXL is the native token of the Axelar network. The protocol also supports the cross-chain transfer of several native tokens via their wrapped ERC-20 versions, including AVAX (Avalanche), ETH (Ethereum), FTM (Fantom), GLMR (Moonbeam), and MATIC (Polygon).

Meanwhile, Axelar has raised capital from top-tier investors, including Binance, Coinbase Ventures, Dragonfly Capital, Polychain Capital and others.

Axelar

BENQI is a decentralized non-custodial liquidity market as well as a liquid staking protocol built on the high-speed Avalanche smart contract network. The lending protocol allows users to lend, borrow, or earn interest using their digital assets.  The Liquid Staking protocol provides a solution for capital efficiency, offering users the opportunity to unlock their “staked” AVAX to be used on Decentralized Financial protocols

The founding team chose Avalanche because of its decentralized network’s claimed high scalability, low fees and compatibility with popular plugin wallets.

BENQI was founded in 2021 with $6 million in backing. Among its strategic investors are Ascensive Assets, Dragonfly Capital, Mechanism Capital, Arrington XRP Capital, Spartan Group, TRGC, Woodstock Fund, Ava Labs, Morningstar Ventures, GBV Capital, Skynet Trading Ltd, Rarestone Capital, Genblock Capital, Moon Inc.

Who Are the Founders of BENQI?

Rome Blockchain Labs Inc. is responsible for the development of BENQI. It is an incubator and a software development firm specializing in decentralized finance (DeFi). JD Gagnon is one of the co-founders and CEO of Rome Blockchain Labs. The two other co-founders are Hannu Kuusi and Alexander Shul.

JD Gagnon graduated with a bachelor’s degree in commerce in finance and accounting from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Before Rome Blockchain Labs, Gagnon has created the Velox algorithmic trading platform. Gagnon is also the founder and CEO of Scotch & Ramen Media, Inc. and CSO of Etheralabs, Inc.

Hannu Kuusi has experience building institutional-grade infrastructure for financial technology (fintech) and military applications.

Alexander Szul is in charge of managing the development of the BENQI liquidity market platform.

What Makes BENQI (QI) Unique?

BENQI (QI) claims to be the first DeFi Lending project on the Avalanche platform. It offers DeFi users from congested and centralized networks the option to move and place their unused assets on BENQI with no hurdles and low network fees. Avalanche allows BENQI users to seamlessly and affordably access decentralized financial services and increase control over their strategies.

Developers have the option to use BENQI to create financial products using the protocol and governance tokens.

BENQI also aims to ease the overloading of the Ethereum network by providing Ethereum users with a less expensive and faster alternative. BENQI members can withdraw liquidity from the shared liquidity market, borrow from the liquidity market and get a clear view of interest rates.

BENQI

DeSo is a new layer-1 blockchain built from the ground up to decentralize social media for billions of users.

We believe in empowering an internet that’s creator-led, user-owned, and open to millions of developers around the world to build off one another.

Today, there’s only a handful of big-tech companies that own and control all the information we consume online.

DeSo puts the ownership back in the hands of users, not platforms. Your identity, your profile, your content, and your social graph can now be owned by you in a completely censorship-resistant way.

Creators can now freely monetize in a way they could never do before.

With new crypto-native monetization tools, like Social Tokens, Social DAOs, Social NFTs, Social Tipping, and more — creators have access to monetize their passion and make a living by doing what they love.

Developers can build in a gasless, permissionless, and transparent environment where everything is open and on-chain for ultimate accessibility and composability.

DeSo is built to support storage-heavy or infinite-state applications, opening up a new world of non-financial-based web3 apps that weren’t possible before.

We can now imagine, build and experience the next generation of web3 social.

In the same way, we’ve seen Bitcoin and Ethereum decentralize finance, DeSo is now enabling this for social.

We know our mission is colossal, but we believe the world will be better when users, creators, and developers are put first - not corporations.

It’s time to break free.

To learn more, make sure to check out the vision behind DeSo.

Check out some of our top apps:

Decentralized Twitter
Decentralized Fundraising
Decentralized Social Networks
Decentralized LinkedIn
Decentralized Medium
Decentralized Instagram
Decentralized TikTok
Decentralized OpenSea