The Ten Crypto Projects Driving This Current Market Cycle

A subset of crypto projects are poised to make a lasting impression in the industry, after attracting a substantial proportion of mindshare

This year’s crypto bull market has seen several new projects gain massive popularity among crypto users. Some of these projects have attracted billions in capital and millions in daily active users. Here are ten crypto projects that are driving this market cycle.

1. Farcaster: A social network native to Optimism that boasts over 53,000 daily active users and has generated more than $1.7 million in total revenue. Farcaster is known for its Frames, which Leow describes as having the potential to “unlock bigger use cases that will leverage the composable, permissionless, and experimental nature of blockchains.”

2. Jito: Known for its flagship cryptocurrency JitoSOL and Solana validator client, Jito is critical to the popular blockchain. JitoSOL has propelled Jito to be Solana’s largest protocol with a total value locked. Jito’s validator client is a modified Solana client optimized to help validators earn more in maximal extractable value (MEV).

3. EigenLayer: A restaking protocol for Ethereum that allows users to commit roughly $18.7 billion into its smart contracts since June 2023. EigenLayer is the second-largest decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol. Not only did EigenLayer conduct its airdrop for its governance token EIGEN, but 12 protocols also launched on it.

4. Jupiter: A Solana-based trading aggregator that scans decentralized exchanges to find the best token prices for users. Jupiter has helped revive Solana from its depths following the collapse of FTX and is playing a key role in the current memecoin frenzy. As of press time, Jupiter has generated $8.3 billion in trading volume from June 2-9.

5. Ethena: A synthetic dollar protocol that rolled out on Ethereum mainnet in February. Known for its USDe token, a yield-bearing cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar, Ethena has skyrocketed as USDe became the fastest dollar-pegged token to reach a market cap of $3 billion. Part of Ethena’s appeal is its high yields for those who stake USDe.

6. Polymarket: A predictions platform that launched on Polygon in 2020, despite geo-fencing people in the US. In June, Polymarket users generated nearly $26.5 million in trading volume. Moreover, the number of monthly active traders in June stands at 14,100. Polymarket has also seen its largest market increase by 76% in three months.

7. Hyperliquid: A layer 1 blockchain network for trading perpetual derivatives that is now number one among perpetual platforms by trading volume. Despite having only launched one year ago, Hyperliquid makes up around 22% of total trading volume for perpetual future products. Open interest on the platform reached an all-time high of $723.3 million on Wednesday.

8. Pendle Finance: A yield tokenization protocol that initially launched in the summer of 2021 on Ethereum and has since expanded to other blockchain networks. Pendle aims to bring the interest derivatives market from traditional finance into DeFi by allowing people to tokenize and sell future yields as tokens. Despite Pendle’s total value locked never crossing above $40 million in 2022, Pendle is now the sixth-largest DeFi protocol.

9. Crypto: The Game: An online and onchain interactive game that has had two seasons, and was recently acquired by Uniswap Labs, a move highlighting the rising interest in crypto gaming experiences. The last season of Crypto: The Game not only included partnerships with Adidas, Lens, Uniswap Labs, and Wormhole, among others, but also reached its maximum capacity of 800 total players in less than 15 minutes when tickets to play became available.

10. Pump.Fun: A platform for people to create and gamble on memecoins that rolled out its mainnet in February and in a few short months has generated over $37 million in revenue. Despite an exploit that resulted in the team pausing trading for two days, the project is on pace to make $230 million in annualized fees, according to DefiLlama.