Among the latest innovations to enter the blockchain world, many people are starting to get to know zkSync. This is a Layer 2 solution on Ethereum to achieve higher scalability for its decentralized apps (dApps).
Over 100 dApps are already running on zkSync, with over 2 million active wallets. These numbers tell us that zkSync’s popularity is growing rapidly in the Web3 economy.
In this trends article, we’ll look at seven exploding zkSync projects belonging to multiple crypto sectors.
Search growth status guide:
- Moon – strong and consistent upward trend in search growth
- When Moon? – relatively flat or sideways trend
- Rekt – declining search volume after a significant peak
1. Maverick
5-year growth: +489.28%
Search growth status: Moon
Year founded: 2021
Valuation: $576 million (Source: CoinMarketCap)
Funding: $18 million (Seed) (Source: Crunchbase)
What they do: The Maverick protocol is a DeFi project aiming to provide services related to liquidity and DAO treasuries. Its Maverick AMM solution promises better trading prices for crypto investors by mitigating gas fees. The project’s single-direction asset following lets liquid providers earn from the speculation on a token price trajectory. The general vision of the team behind Maverick is that liquidity providers should have more capital control than mainstream AMM can guarantee.
2. Mute
5-year growth: +68.36%
Search growth status: When Moon?
Year founded: 2018
Valuation: $14 million (Source: CoinMarketCap)
Funding: Unknown (Private) (Source: Pitchbook)
What they do: Mute is a DeFi project that leverages zkSync to build a digital hub for crypto liquidity. The team’s main goal is to propose an AMM decentralized exchange (DEX) that’s both easy and cheap to use for the crypto community. Mute grants a maximum transaction time of 1-3 seconds, with no minting fees and gas fees that grant a 95% saving compared to Ethereum. With bond offerings and a yield generation platform, the project targets everyone wishing to enjoy the benefits of crypto passive income.
3. Rhino
5-year growth: +9.09%
Search growth status: When Moon?
Year founded: 2019
Valuation: $52.9 million (Source: CoinGecko)
Funding: Unknown (Private) (Source: Pitchbook)
What they do: Rhino is an L2 blockchain bridge solution that supports multiple chains. This is a DeFi project that brings one-click cross-chain token transfers to its community. Rhino guarantees fast transactions (with waiting times below 60 seconds) and offers multiple features. Among these, we can mention “Swap,” “Earn,” and “Bridge.” Over 500 tokens are available through the project’s swap interface, and the “Earn” feature promises over-the-average annual returns (APYs).
4. Domani
5-year growth: +625.85%
Search growth status: Moon
Year founded: 2017
Valuation: $26.5 million (Source: CoinGecko)
Funding: $480,000 (Seed) (Source: CBInsights)
What they do: Domani is an asset management protocol that democratizes investment through non-custodial tokenized portfolios, or XTFs, enabling seamless minting, trading, and redemption. Unlike traditional finance, where ownership is relinquished, or classic DeFi, where risks are high, Domani ensures investors retain control over their assets. The protocol eschews potentially manipulable oracles for arbitrageurs, providing a safer, more reliable price feed.
5. Deri
5-year growth: -23.46%
Search growth status: When Moon?
Year founded: 2021
Valuation: $6.6 million (Source: CoinGecko)
Funding: Unknown (Private) (Source: Crunchbase)
What they do: Deri is a project that leverages zkSync to let its users trade crypto derivatives. The project converts each trader’s position into an NFT, which, as such, has a value on the secondary market. Trading perpetual futures is the main feature offered by Deri. There’s also the possibility of trading power perpetual contracts and everlasting options. As of 2023, the project’s overall trading volume is above $140 billion, which grew rapidly from the $20+ billion recorded at launch.
6. Symbiosis
5-year growth: +15.77%
Search growth status: When Moon?
Year founded: 2021
Valuation: $8.6 million (Source: CoinGecko)
Funding: $5 million (Seed) (Source: Crunchbase)
What they do: Symbiosis proposes itself as an AMM DEX that aims to pool multiple crypto sources in one user-friendly platform: L2, L1, EVM, and non-EVM projects. In short, Symbiosis intends to become an easy-to-use platform in the decentralized world, just like Uniswap. This team sees the uneven exchange direction among different networks as the main obstacle to the success of DEXs. Therefore, Symbiosis introduces a pool of on-chain projects to average the market liquidity and solve the matter.
7. Cielo
5-year growth: +37.25%
Search growth status: Moon
Year founded: 2020
Valuation: Unknown
Funding: Unknown (Private) (Source: CBInsights)
What they do: Cielo was born as an easy-to-read information layer for on-chain activity in response to the fact that this sector often requires advanced coding skills. Any Telegram or Discord user can rely on Cielo’s “bot” feature to track a crypto wallet. The platform lets you use this tracking tool in a completely anonymous way, and it works both with your wallet and with that of a third party. The team mentions its smartphone-friendly approach as one of Cielo’s main strengths.
Conclusion
As shown above, DeFi is the crypto area where zkSync’s popularity is soaring rapidly. This is unsurprising, as the new technology proposes a combination of fast and cheap on-chain transactions.
Within DeFi, the AMM DEX projects enjoy zkSync’s versatile framework.
The scalability offered by zkSync and its successors will likely change the Web3 market balance. Low gas fees and fast transactions solve the initial BTC and ETH problems, and new challenges will arise.
zkSync is a Layer 2 (L2) solution built on Ethereum to enhance blockchain scalability. This is possible by combining low transaction fees and fast operations.
zkSync is a technology that many decentralized finance (DeFi) applications are using. Many teams are relying on zkSync to reduce gas fees compared to Ethereum.
AMM DEX stands for "automated market maker decentralized exchange." These projects use specific algorithms to find the average price of a crypto asset among multiple platforms.
Yes, projects such as Cielo let you track your wallet (or someone else's) directly on your Telegram/Discord apps, thanks to zkSync.
Yes, platforms such as Mute.io let you earn passive crypto income with bonds and yield-generating smart contracts.
Susan Oh
Susan Oh is a leading figure in the integration of AI and blockchain for social good, serving as the CMO for BeOmni by Beyond Imagination and a civic technologist dedicated to creating scalable solutions. She is a board member of the Blockchain Commission For Sustainable Development supported by the UN GA Office of Partnerships, and a member of the Global Sustainability Network, a joint initiative by the Vatican and the Church of England to combat human trafficking. Recognized with the...
