The core technology of Octopus Network is trust-minimal blockchain interoperability. Based on that, Octopus Relay, which itself is a set of smart contracts running on NEAR blockchain, provides leased security to appchains, and makes appchains interoperable with NEAR and other appchains. Furthermore, appchains can interoperate with blockchains outside the Octopus Network, either via bridges on NEAR, such as with Ethereum via Rainbow bridge, or they can utilize the out-of-the-box IBC pallet to connect with any IBC enabled blockchains directly.

Anyone can provide security to an appchain by staking $OCT tokens in the Octopus Relay. After that, the validator should set up and run a validator node for the appchain, and the node will sync the validator set from the Octopus Relay. Then all validator nodes for one appchain will form a quorum to reach consensus on block production and be rewarded with the appchain native token. If one or more validators act maliciously in the consensus process, any honest node can submit a fraud proof to the Octopus Relay to challenge them. Once the fraud proof is confirmed, the staked $OCT belonging to the malicious actors will be slashed. By this mechanism, an appchain’s security is economically ensured by $OCT staking in the Octopus Relay.

Octopus Network

Trust Wallet

MetaMask

Ethereum

Shiba Inu

Chainlink

UNUS SED LEO

Uniswap

FLOKI

Wormhole

Immutable

The Sandbox

Maker

Bitget Token

Ondo

SingularityNET

The Graph

Pendle

LuckysLeprecoin

Enjinstarter

Dopex

Launchpool

Gold Fever

Aurora is a product that helps Ethereum users and dApps to easily move to the NEAR blockchain. It allows users to do two distinct things: upload and interact with Solidity smart contracts on NEAR blockchain and move assets (including ERC-20 tokens) between Ethereum, NEAR and Aurora via the Rainbow Bridge..

Aurora’s base token is ETH to deliver the best user experience and familiar tooling for developers.

AURORA token is a governance token to ensure proper upgrades to the protocol.
Aurora is governed by AuroraDAO which includes representatives from different ecosystems and sectors of the blockchain industry.

Aurora

Acala Token

Moonbeam is an Ethereum-compatible smart contract parachain on Polkadot. Moonbeam makes it easy to use popular Ethereum developer tools to build or redeploy Solidity projects in a Substrate-based environment.

Moonbeam is much more than just an EVM implementation: it’s a highly specialized parachain that mirrors Ethereum’s Web3 RPC, accounts, keys, subscriptions, logs, and more. The Moonbeam platform extends the base Ethereum feature set with additional features such as on-chain governance, staking, and cross-chain integrations.

Moonbeam’s Ethereum compatibility is unmatched:

Minimal Changes: developers can use existing Solidity smart contracts right away, with no need to rewrite or reconfigure

Use Existing Developer Tools: connect popular tools like MetaMask, Hardhat, Waffle, Remix, and Truffle via a complete set of Web3 RPC endpoints. Use well-known Javascript libraries such as Web3.Js or Ethers.Js.

Unified Accounts, Addresses, and Signatures: use your existing Ethereum H160 accounts & ECDSA signatures to interact with Moonbeam

Tap into the Most Integrations on Polkadot: use existing oracles, bridges, wallets, and other tools that are already building on Moonbeam

Moonbeam provides integration and connectivity between Polkadot Parachains as well as with other chains such as Ethereum and Bitcoin via bridges. Moonbeam was started in 2019 by Derek Yoo of Pure Stake.

Moonbeam

Covalent leverages big-data technologies to create meaning from hundreds of billions of data points, delivering actionable insights to investors and allowing developers to allocate resources to higher-utility goals within their organization.

Instead of painstakingly sourcing data from a small handful of chains, Covalent aggregates information from across dozens of sources including nodes, chains and data feeds. The Covalent API then sources end-users with individualized data by wallet, including current and historical investment performance across all types of digital assets. Most importantly, Covalent returns this data in a rapid and consistent manner, incorporating all relevant data within one API interface.

Having achieved product-market fit, we are now planning to execute the next phase of Covalent, which is a progressive decentralization that will enable the Covalent Network to be owned and operated by its users. Of course, a critical piece to this is CQT.

CQT is the native token of the Covalent Network. It has three primary purposes:

CQT is a governance token, whereby token holders vote on proposals to change the system parameters.

CQT is a staking asset. Validators will earn fees for answering queries.

CQT is a network access token that fulfills data queries for users of the API.

Developer resources include:

Covalent Knowledge Base for extensive guides on how to use the Covalent API. 

Covalent API Documentation.

Covalent

Secret (SCRT) is a privacy-oriented blockchain built on Cosmos. Its smart contracts are called Secret Contracts and allow DApps to use private data on Secret, similar to how smart contracts operate on other blockchains. However, Secret Contracts transfer encrypted inputs into encrypted outputs without exposing data. This is made possible thanks to the encrypted contract states during the execution.

Data privacy is guaranteed by combining encryption protocols and key management within a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). This allows Secret Contracts to compete for several privacy-related use cases that traditional blockchains have found difficult to accommodate. For instance, private voting mechanisms or credit scoring applications become possible since they do not expose sensitive user data on-chain with Secret.

Secret

Karura is an all-in-one decentralized finance (DeFi) hub and stablecoin platform built on Kusama (KSM) and integrated into Polkadot (DOT). Karura was created by the Acala Network, which has won four Web3 Foundation grants and founded the Substrate Developer Academy.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Karura.

Both Karura and Acala are backed by multiple funds, including Coinbase Ventures, Pantera Capital, Polychain Capital and Hypersphere. Karura and Acala operate in parallel. Specifically, Karura is implementing DeFi on Kusama in the same way that Acala is offering DeFi on Polkadot. The network is built with almost the same codebase as Acala: the two platforms provide scalable, convenient and fast DeFi cross-chain ecosystems for Kusama and Polkadot.

Parachain Karura is a platform that allows users to create effective, low-cost and complex financial applications, saving time and increasing trading efficiency.

The platform itself provides a multi-collateralized stablecoin backed by cross-chain assets (kUSD), a trustless staking derivative (liquid KSM), and an automated market maker (AMM) decentralized exchange (DEX) for unlocking liquidity and supporting financial innovation.

Karura is the decentralized financial hub of Kusama, a scalable multi-chain network for radical innovation and early-stage Polkadot deployments. Karura is the sister network to Acala. It hosts multichain liquid staking token (LST) protocols (such as liquid KSM - LKSM), an AMM decentralized exchange, and an app platform that is EVM-compatible and highly customizable (based on Substrate). Karura is secured by Kusama, and is the liquidity gateway of Kusama parachains, Acala and L1/L2 blockchains

Karura

Phala Network is a coprocessor for blockchains. Developers deploy “Phat Contracts,” off-chain program for coprocessors, enhancing dApps with connectivity, internet access, and heavy computation, overcoming web3 constraints.

Phala Network has one of the largest Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) on Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX) hardware, which means that any code/data on Phala Network is protected from unauthorized access by users. Phala addresses developer concerns with expanded developer language support such as JavaScript and more, and ready-to-deploy Templates for seamless Phat Contract integration, streamlining the experience for web3 developers.

Phala stands at the forefront of Web3 innovation, fostering development through its Builders Program.

Phala Network

OCP introduces an innovative relayer mechanism that seamlessly connects applications to a modular permissionless custody protocol. OCP operates a protocol that acts akin to a mesh network, enabling an end-user to leverage a diverse set of key management protocols. We call this “Keychain Aggregation”. Building a protocol that solves for Keychain Aggregation not only simplifies the way developers can build, abstracting risk and complexity, but it also harmonizes and aggregates the economics associated with having multiple bilateral commercial relationships.

With OCP, we have a new custody primitive that embraces (1) modularity, in connecting key management solutions, and (2) decentralisation, in the way users can access key generation and transaction signing services. We are particularly excited to pioneer this, witnessing existing security and custody solutions struggle to adapt to the ongoing proliferation of chains. Additionally, with the impending tokenization of Real World Assets (RWAs) - potentially mobilizing over trillions of dollars into the blockchain ecosystem - the demand for versatile and modular solutions is clear and present.

Open Custody Protocol

Efinity is a cross-chain NFT platform developed by Enjin and built on Polkadot. Efinity was created as the next generation blockchain for digital assets with the aim of adapting to the challenges of the world of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), according to the project.

The main specialization of the Efinity project is the NFT space. With the protocol, traders and gamers can create, distribute, transfer, sell and buy NFTs. Efinity aims to remove barriers to entry into the NFT space/decentralized gaming, and to simplify user experience and digital asset governance.

Efinity Token powers the entire Efinity ecosystem, EFI aims to prioritize the generation, transfer and purchase of tokens using an inter-chain infrastructure of protocols resulting in lower transaction fees. As for incentives, rewards on PoW blockchains with NFT functionality go to miners who create/trade tokens, thereby forming a community.

One of the long-term goals of Efinity is to become a hub for both fungible and non-fungible tokens, accepting tokens from any other chain, facilitating the pricing and exchange of NFTs, increasing transaction volume, and creating network effects.

In December 2021, the project won the Polkadot parachain auction, and in March 2022, Enjin launched their flagship parachain Efinity on the Polkadot Relay Chain — a blockchain platform that provides a decentralized parachain network where people havecontrol over their data and identity.

Efinity Token

Launched on mainnet on March 30, 2021, Casper is the first live proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain built off the Casper CBC specification. The Casper platform is designed to boost the adoption of blockchain technology, smart contracts, and DApps on a global scale.

With its future-proof architecture, Casper is designed to ensure the platform is continually developed according to the evolving needs of its users, and that it’s maximally accessible to developers of all backgrounds. As per the official whitepaper, Casper is optimized to suit both enterprise and developer needs. Casper’s mission is to usher in a new era for Web3, as demand for intuitive, interconnected services continues to grow across the board. Casper does so by solving the adoption trilemma: offering enterprise-grade security, scalability and decentralization all within the same blockchain protocol.

Casper

Mina Protocol is a minimal “succinct blockchain” built to curtail computational requirements in order to run DApps more efficiently. Mina has been described as the world’s lightest blockchain since its size is designed to remain constant despite growth in usage. Furthermore, it remains balanced in terms of security and decentralization. The project was rebranded from Coda Protocol to Mina in October 2020.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Mina Protocol.

The Mina network has a size of only 22 KB, which is miniscule when compared to Bitcoin’s 300 GB blockchain.

Mina

Moonriver is an Ethereum-compatible, smart-contract parachain on Kusama. It is intended to be a companion network to Moonbeam, where it will provide a permanently incentivized canary network. New code will ship to Moonriver first, where it can be tested and verified under real economic conditions. Once proven, the same code will ship to Moonbeam on Polkadot.

It does this by providing a full EVM implementation, a Web3-compatible API, and bridges that connect Moonriver to existing Ethereum networks.

This allows developers to deploy existing Solidity smart contracts and DApp frontends to Moonriver with minimal changes.

Moonriver

Boba Network

Oasis is the pioneering layer 1 blockchain designed to enable scalability and confidential compute. Oasis is home to Sapphire, the first confidential EVM that empowers Web3 and Decentralized AI developers to build dApps with Smart Privacy natively on Oasis or other EVM-based chains.

ROSE is the native token of the Oasis Network used for gas fees, staking, delegation and governance. With a unique layered architecture, Oasis presents the optimal building and execution environment for DeFi, AI, GameFi, NFTs, the metaverse, data tokenization and DAO governance. Oasis also has native support for rollups at the consensus layer.

Oasis

Astar Network helps developers build decentralized applications (dApps) and layer 2 solutions by providing interoperable web 3.0 infrastructure, financial incentives, incubation programmes and technical support. It seeks to provide the best solution for all developers by supporting EVM and making a parachain where EVM and WASM smart contracts can co-exist and communicate with each other.

Astar connects the Polkadot ecosystem with layer 1 blockchains like Ethereum and Cosmos. It's a Polkadot Parachain, and was designed as a multi-chain Polkadot dApp hub with support for DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, where developers can move beyond infrastructure and focus more on application development.

The project, which is backed by Binance Labs and Coinbase Ventures, operates on two layers: the first layer is built on the Substrate framework, and the second is built using OVM or Optimistic Virtual Machine, for scalability.

Astar

Flux is the cryptocurrency that powers the Flux ecosystem. It has a number of uses including purchasing resources, collateralizing nodes and fuelling transactions on FluxOS, as well as rewarding both miners and FluxNode operators for providing computational resources.

The Flux ecosystem is devoted to empowering everyone to develop, deploy and use the decentralized Internet of the future: Web3

At this moment the Flux ecosystem consists of: a native, minable POW cryptocurrency ($FLUX), a powerful decentralized computational Flux Network (FluxNodes), a Linux based operating system (FluxOS), the premier digital asset platform (Zelcore) and, finally, the Flux blockchain for on-chain governance, economics and parallel assets to provide interoperability with other blockchains and DeFi access.

Currently (2023/1) Flux has a computational network consisting of around 15,000 decentralized nodes, distributed globally with more than 108,000 CPU cores, 288 terabytes of RAM and 6.7 petabytes of storage. That makes Flux the largest decentralized network in the world!

Flux

Biconomy is a multichain relayer protocol that aims to improve the user onboarding and transaction experience on decentralized applications (DApps). The project’s declared goal is to make web3 products as intuitive and easy to use as web2 products. Biconomy offers an infrastructure to solve several web3 bottlenecks:

Protocols can onboard users without paying gas fees.

Users can pay gas in an ERC-20 token of their choice.

Users avoid blockchain complexities like a change of network.

Transactions are confirmed much faster.

In short, Biconomy focuses on transaction management and gas optimization and can reduce gas costs by up to 40%. To achieve that, the protocol utilizes meta transactions, allowing users to submit a transaction with zero gas and having a third party pay for the transaction fees for the user. By providing a non-custodial and gas-efficient relayer infrastructure network, Biconomy is able to do this at scale.

Biconomy

NEAR Protocol is a layer-one blockchain that was designed as a community-run cloud computing platform and that eliminates some of the limitations that have been bogging competing blockchains, such as low transaction speeds, low throughput and poor interoperability. This provides the ideal environment for DApps and creates a developer and user-friendly platform. For instance, NEAR uses human-readable account names, unlike the cryptographic wallet addresses common to Ethereum. NEAR also introduces unique solutions to scaling problems and has its own consensus mechanism called “Doomslug.”

NEAR Protocol is being built by the NEAR Collective, its community that is updating the initial code and releasing updates to the ecosystem. Its declared goal is to build a platform that is “secure enough to manage high value assets like money or identity and performant enough to make them useful for everyday people.”

Flux, a protocol that allows developers to create markets based on assets, commodities, real-world events, and Mintbase, an NFT minting platform are examples of projects being built on NEAR Protocol.

NEAR Protocol

Celo is a carbon-negative, permissionless, blockchain with a rich ecosystem of global partners building innovative Web3 dapps to support a more inclusive financial system. Accessible to anyone with a mobile phone, the Celo ecosystem consists of a decentralized, proof-of-stake blockchain technology stack (the Celo platform), CELO governance asset, and several Mento stable assets (cUSD, cEUR, cREAL) that allow for real-world users to use digital assets. The open source Celo mainnet launched on Earth Day 2020.  The Celo community passed an indicative on-chain governance proposal (temperature check) to have Celo migrate to an Ethereum layer-2.  Google Cloud, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, and many others run validators on the Celo Platform.  Today, the Platform supports 1,000+ projects in over 150 countries are building on Celo to, helping to create the conditions of prosperity for all.  For more information, please visit Celo.org.