On August 21, 2024, Binance announced the launch of the 57th project on its Launchpool: Dogs (DOGS). The webpage for this new token mining will go live within 24 hours before the pool starts. Users can stake their BNB and FDUSD in separate pools to mine DOGS tokens over three days, starting at 00:00 (UTC) on August 23, 2024. Binance will list DOGS and open trading pairs (DOGS/USDT, DOGS/BNB, DOGS/FDUSD, DOGS/TRY) at 12:00 (UTC) on August 26, 2024. A seed tag will be applied to DOGS.

Launchpool Details:

- Token Name: Dogs (DOGS)
- Maximum Supply: 550,000,000,000 DOGS
- Initial Circulation: 516,750,000,000 DOGS (93.95% of the total supply)
- Total Mining Amount: 22,000,000,000 DOGS (4% of the maximum supply)
- Mining Period: From 08:00 on August 23, 2024, to 07:59 on August 26, 2024 (UTC+8)

Introduction:

DOGS (DOGS) is a meme coin designed to embody the spirit and culture of the Telegram community. The coin has a unique backstory, setting it apart from other cryptocurrencies. It is inspired by Spotty, the unofficial mascot of VK (a Russian social media site), created by Pavel Durov during a charity auction. Spotty quickly became a beloved symbol, and now DOGS aims to bring this tradition into the world of cryptocurrencies.

Spotty’s journey began when VK’s founder, Pavel Durov, drew the iconic dog during a charity auction to support orphanages. Spotty became a symbol of care and charity, with 100% of the sales of Spotty-themed gifts going to support orphanages and children's homes. Over the years, Spotty's adventures have ranged from being one of VK's earliest sticker characters to appearing at VK Fest, and even going to space!

Tokenomics:

DOGS tokenomics were released in the Telegram community. The total supply of DOGS is 550,000,000,000, distributed as follows:

1. 81.5% allocated to the community (no lock-up):
   - 73% belongs to Telegram OGs who earned DOGS in-app;
   - The remaining portion is reserved for rewarding traders, creators, and future community members.
2. 10% allocated to the team and future development.
3. 8.5% reserved for liquidity on CEX and DEX, and for listing-related activities.

How DOGS Works:

1. Join the Dogs Bot: Start by joining the Dogs Bot on Telegram.
2. Activate the Bot: Click the "Start" button after joining. The bot will guide you through the process.
3. Verify Your Telegram Usage: The bot will ask you to verify your time spent on Telegram. The more you’ve used Telegram, the more DOGS tokens you’ll receive.
4. Claim Your DOGS Tokens: After verification, the bot will reward you with DOGS tokens based on your Telegram activity.
5. Share with Friends: Tell your friends about the Dogs Bot. The more people join, the stronger the community becomes, potentially increasing the value of DOGS tokens.

Distribution:

One of the most exciting aspects of DOGS is its distribution method. Unlike traditional mining or purchasing, DOGS tokens are distributed based on users’ Telegram activity. Here’s how you can earn DOGS tokens:

- Your Telegram Account Age: The older your Telegram account, the more DOGS tokens you might receive. This rewards long-term users of the platform.
- Telegram Premium Subscription: Users with Telegram Premium subscriptions receive additional benefits and more tokens, encouraging more people to subscribe to Telegram Premium, thereby enhancing their overall Telegram experience.
- OG Status: OG (Original Gangster) status indicates that you are a long-time active Telegram user. This status allows you to earn more DOGS tokens in recognition of your loyalty and activity on the platform.

Latest Updates on DOGS:

Extension of Airdrop Claim Period Announced Again:
The DOGS project team has announced that over 8 million verified users have requested to have their DOGS directly deposited into exchanges and Telegram wallets. DOGS has decided to adjust the TGE (Token Generation Event) date once more. The updated schedule is as follows:

- The claim period for exchanges and Telegram wallets will be extended until 24:00 (UTC+8) on August 23.
- Claims for non-custodial wallets will be available from 16:00 (UTC+8) on August 26.
- TGE and listing will occur at 20:00 (UTC+8) on August 26.

DOGS Listed on Multiple Exchanges:

- Bitget opened DOGS/USDT trading at 20:00 (UTC+8) on August 20.
- OKX will open DOGS/USDT spot trading between 19:00 and 20:00 (UTC+8) on August 23.
- Binance will list DOGS and open DOGS/USDT, DOGS/BNB, DOGS/FDUSD, and DOGS/TRY trading pairs at 12:00 (UTC) on August 26.
- Gate.io will begin trading DOGS at 20:00 (UTC+8) on August 26.

Data shows that meme coins on the Solana network are experiencing a widespread surge, with a 20.2% increase in the last 24 hours. Among them:
- WIF has risen by 10.1% in the past 24 hours, currently trading at $2.93.
- BONK has seen a 0.3% increase in the last 24 hours, now trading at $0.00001599.
- BOME has surged by 4.9% in the past 24 hours, currently trading at $0.009051.
- MEW has experienced a significant increase of 79.1% in the last 24 hours, now trading at $0.004599.

The total open interest in Bitcoin contracts across all platforms is 437,600 BTC, valued at approximately $19.208 billion. This massive volume of holdings reflects investors' confidence in the potential value of Bitcoin. Looking at these numbers, one can almost feel the exhilaration coursing through the entire digital financial world, eliciting excitement for the development of Bitcoin.

According to the latest report from Nansen as of October 12, 2023, the number of daily active addresses on Ethereum has sharply increased, surpassing 300,000. Among these active addresses, DeFi entities continue to dominate. In terms of DeFi user numbers alone, it exceeds the combined total of NFT and Layer2 scaling users by more than twice, solidifying DeFi's central position in on-chain activities. The number of NFT users, which once surpassed DeFi in early 2022, has sharply declined by over 50% since the beginning of 2023. In contrast, Layer1/scaling users experienced significant growth in March, then dropped back to previous levels in May, followed by another increase in the "scaling" category, maintaining relative stability since June.

It's noteworthy that DeFi users hold the most prominent position among these clusters. In comparison, activities in the NFT, gaming, and GambleFi sectors decreased by 61.4%, reflecting a decline in new users focused on NFTs. Additionally, throughout the year 2023, the number of users participating in NFTs continued to decrease, highlighting the diminishing appeal of the NFT industry to new wallet holders.

MakerDAO's recent announcement about launching a new chain, referred to as their "Endgame," has ignited discussions within the crypto community. Many are perplexed by MakerDAO's decision to step away from Ethereum, and questions arise about the motivations behind this move. Why didn't MakerDAO opt for a Layer 2 solution within the Ethereum ecosystem? Why the inclination towards Solana? Could this shift indicate a trend where prominent protocols like Optimism and Uniswap, originally built on Ethereum, consider transitioning to independent application chains?

Without delving into the specifics, let's explore an alternative perspective:

The Ideal Growth Trajectory for Public Chains: Public blockchains, as fundamental infrastructure, ideally foster a thriving ecosystem of applications closely intertwined with the core blockchain. Any attempt to break away from this symbiotic relationship may seem counterintuitive. However, due to Ethereum's performance limitations, it appears that application "breakaways" are becoming inevitable. So, how can this transition be understood? Examining the historical evolution of blockchain infrastructure, we can identify three methods:

1. Layer 2 Modular "Escape": This approach relies on Ethereum's mainnet as a secure consensus layer and leverages its data availability for scalability. It's essentially an "escape," but Layer 2 remains linked to the mainnet, creating a mutually beneficial alliance. As the Layer 2 ecosystem grows, with ETH as the gas token in various scenarios, Ethereum's position becomes more robust.
However, it's vital to recognize that Layer 2 scaling has limitations. Rollup solutions are constrained by Ethereum's mainnet contract, and no matter how much Layer 2 scales, it's bound by the Ethereum Virtual Machine's (EVM) resource limits. Ethereum's gas limit, for instance, is currently around 30,000,000, with a single block accommodating roughly 1,000 transactions. Therefore, while Layer 2 scaling is widely accepted as an "escape" strategy, it's not without limitations.
For MakerDAO, a DeFi infrastructure with relatively infrequent transactions, Layer 2 scaling could address scalability concerns. However, MakerDAO's interest in creating a NewChain stems from the fact that the Rollup solution doesn't allow for a hard fork, meaning they can't regain control over their assets if Layer 2 experiences a significant security breach. For MakerDAO, retaining absolute control and security is the core motivation behind their NewChain initiative.

2. Off-Chain + On-Chain Exclusive Transaction Routing "Exit": Consider Uniswap as an example. Currently, nearly 60% of Ethereum transactions are linked to Uniswap. However, Uniswap grapples with challenges stemming from the underlying "miners charging gas fees based on bids" system. This mining system incentivizes miners but also fosters the presence of MEV arbitrage bots, causing fluctuating gas fees and affecting user experiences.
Uniswap is working on solutions like Wallet, UniswapX for off-chain preprocessing, and on-chain integration. This can be seen as another form of "exit." In the future, if 60% of Ethereum transactions must pass through Uniswap's off-chain preprocessing before going on-chain, this decentralized preprocessing environment essentially becomes a Uniswap Chain. For Uniswap, defining rules (fee-less transactions, Dutch auction mechanisms for pools, anti-MEV measures), and constructing a new ecosystem become natural steps. However, even if Uniswap ventures into chain development, it's likely to maintain a deep connection with Ethereum.

3. Building a Completely New Consensus Public Chain "Exit":Some projects have ventured into creating Layer 1 public chains. However, many have realized that Ethereum's performance bottlenecks and established ecosystem make it more practical to stay within Ethereum's orbit. Projects like Polygon 2.0, opBNB, and others are returning to Ethereum by aiming for EVM compatibility and integrating with Layer 2 solutions. Creating an independent consensus public chain is the most comprehensive form of "escape," but Ethereum's performance limits and ecosystem foundation pose a dilemma. Currently, aligning with Ethereum's ecosystem seems like a more prudent choice.

In conclusion, the crypto market is a complex landscape where projects make strategic decisions based on their unique needs and objectives. While many opt for Layer 2 scaling to address scalability issues within Ethereum's constraints, others, like MakerDAO, choose to build their own chains to ensure absolute control and security. Each project's path is influenced by its distinctive circumstances, and the dynamics between Ethereum and its ecosystem will continue to evolve as the blockchain space matures.

To further reduce the amount of Gas spent on the Ethereum chain, Gala Games, a blockchain gaming platform, intends to migrate stock and unsold NFT game items from Ethereum to GalaChain to provide users with a more seamless Web3 gaming experience. As part of the migration, Gala Games will also provide players with a collection of NFT blind boxes, each containing three random game items from the Gala Games ecosystem that can be minted, published and distributed on GalaChain at no cost.

With the cryptocurrency market still in a state of uncertainty, many cryptocurrency investors are wondering if it's time to sell to avoid further losses, or if the market will recover soon.

Although the cryptocurrency market has always recovered from bear markets so far, every bear market has its "casualties," and those "casualties" never recover strongly. Therefore, it is important to choose quality cryptocurrency projects that have a chance to survive the bear market and thrive in the future.

We analyzed 200 of the top cryptocurrencies based on liquidity and availability, technology, industry leadership, token economics and more key factors. You can read more about our standards later in this article.

1. Ripple
XRP is a cryptocurrency that was launched in June 2012. It was developed by David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb and Arthur Britto, who along with Chris Larsen started a company called OpenCoin. 80% of the XRP supply is donated to the company by XRP developers. OpenCoin has since changed its name to Ripple, and the company has placed most of its XRP holdings in custody.

XRP offers very fast and low-cost transfers, making it suitable for use cases such as money transfers. It uses neither proof-of-work nor proof-of-stake, but implements the XRP ledger consensus protocol. Each participant in the XRP network can choose a set of validators that they trust to act honestly.

Ripple has applied the XRP cryptocurrency to its products, particularly on-demand liquidity (ODL). ODL has partnered with cryptocurrency exchanges to provide efficient cross-border remittances using XRP.

Why choose Ripple?
XRP has recently become the focus of attention in the cryptocurrency market due to favorable developments in the litigation between Ripple and the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission). A U.S. judge said last week that Ripple's sale of XRP to a cryptocurrency exchange did not constitute a securities offering.

Although Ripple's legal battle with securities regulators is not over yet, the latest development has been greeted positively by the market. The price of XRP has increased significantly, which has also stimulated the entire altcoin market.

Several cryptocurrency exchanges have announced that they will relaunch XRP, including major players Coinbase and Kraken.

As of this writing, XRP's 7-day price change is +57%, which makes it the second-best performing cryptocurrency among the Top 100 cryptocurrencies. The token's peak price was just under $0.90, its highest price since March last year.

Of course, after going up so much in such a short period of time, XRP is likely to undergo a price correction. However, there is no denying that XRP is one of the most noteworthy crypto assets right now, and its performance is likely to determine the performance of the rest of the altcoin market.

2.Aave
Aave is a decentralized liquidity protocol that was originally launched on the Ethereum blockchain, but now supports seven different blockchains. Aave provides a decentralized system for users to borrow crypto assets or lend them out to earn interest on their holdings.

Aave is one of the largest protocols in the entire decentralized financial ecosystem, with approximately $6 billion worth of TVL (total lock-in value) at the time of writing. Aave has a governance token called AAVE, which can also act as a source of liquidity in the event of a deficit in the agreement.

Why Aave?

Aave DAO recently launched GHO, a decentralized stablecoin that users can mint with collateral held in Aave V3 lending protocols. Users who deposit assets in Aave V3 can mint GHOs as collateral while still continuing to earn the income generated from lending the assets. This makes the cost of borrowing GHO significantly lower.

The GHO is designed to track the dollar and take excess collateral to help ensure stability. Initially, the foundry capacity of the GHO is limited to $100 million, although this can be changed through governance. GHO stablecoins are managed through the Aave DAO, and token holders will be able to vote on their minting capabilities, risk parameters, interest rates, and more.

The launch of the GHO could help cement Aave's leading position in the DeFi space. According to DeFi aggregator DeFiLlama, Aave's TVL is $6 billion, making it the largest DeFi deal outside of the liquid pledge agreement Lido.

3.MATIC
Polygon is a blockchain project that was originally founded in 2017 under the name Matic Network. The original name of the project is why the token used in the Polygon ecosystem is called MATIC, even though the project itself adopted a new name in February 2021.

The core mission of the Polygon project is to create scalable solutions based on the Ethereum blockchain. If you've ever used the Ethereum blockchain, you probably know that transaction fees can become very high during periods of increased demand.

Currently, Polygon's flagship platform is Polygon PoS, a PoS blockchain platform that is compatible with the Ethereum virtual machine. After Ethereum started suffering from high transaction fees, it has become one of the most popular alternatives to Ethereum.

Polygon's native asset is called MATIC, and it is used for critical operations on the network, such as pledging and paying transaction fees. Polygon was one of the first Ethereum scaling platforms to gain widespread adoption, which helped the team launch a number of initiatives to further accelerate growth.

Why MATIC?
The Polygon project has unveiled a proposal to rename the MATIC token as POL and introduce a series of token economic changes. The proposal refers to POL as an "efficient token" that allows holders to act as validators on multiple blockchains.

Verifiers will benefit from protocol rewards, transaction fees, and possibly even additional rewards offered by various chains in the Polygon ecosystem to provide additional incentives.

In terms of token economics, POL emissions will be used to fund a community vault that will be used to fund protocol development, protocol research, ecosystem grants, and various incentives designed to promote Polygon adoption.

If the proposal is accepted by the Polygon community, the process of upgrading from MATIC to POL is expected to be straightforward. The MATIC holder sends their token to the smart contract, which will then return an equal amount of POL tokens.

The zkSync Era mainnet opened to everyone on March 24, and in just over two months, TVL has reached $480 million and is growing at nearly 20% per week. zkSync Era now has 920,000 unique addresses, far surpassing popular Layer2 networks such as Arbitrum, Optimism, and Starknet.
Although these bright data and zkSync Era Token distribution expectations are not unrelated, but in any case, after the BRC-20 led bitcoin ecological heat faded, zkSync Era has become a rare hot spot and topic of the market.
So what is the current ecological development status of zkSync Era? What about the availability of ZK Rollup, which has been criticized for being technically difficult and slow? Can the zkSync Era continue its high heat and high TVL growth beyond the expected end of Token incentives?

01 Layer2 What advantages the zkSync Era has as the war spreads

The high cost, low speed and even congestion of the Ethereum main network have brought about the explosion of the Layer2 plate. Especially in the past six months, Arbitrum, Optimism and other token airdrop have been released, a large number of stories of sudden wealth have attracted the Wool party's attention to the Layer2 project that has not yet released the token, and Layer2 has become the focus of financial resources and topics in the industry. Coupled with Binance, Coinbase, ConsenSys and others have successively entered the Layer2 sector, the blessing of giant funds has made Layer2 a highly anticipated crypto narrative.
So, where does zkSync Era fit in among Layer2 and what are its advantages?
At present, Layer2 is mainly the Rollup solution that the industry focuses on, including Optimistic Rollup and ZK Rollup. The basic principle of both of them is to centrally package some transactions in Layer2 and then submit them to the mainnet of Ethereum. But the difference lies in the form of data validation.
Optimism Rollup assumes that all transaction data is positive, but provides a period of inspection in which a person finds fraudulent transaction data and is rewarded with penalty money pledged by the audit node.
ZK Rollup adopts the method of zero-knowledge proof. After data packaging, the zero-knowledge proof of data generated by a large number of calculations is submitted to the chain together with other related core data to verify whether there is any error, and a definite result is given directly by relying on algorithms and computing power. Compared with the tortuous game process in the middle of Optimism Rollup, That's a lot better.
However, the problem with ZK Rollup is that technical implementation is much more complicated than Optimism Rollup. Therefore, when the main network of Optimistic Rollup project, such as Arbitrum and OP, is launched early to seize the opportunity, other ZK projects can only worry. After all, technical problems require real time and resource investment, and there is no hurry.
However, no matter for the public chain or Layer2 project, the construction of ecology is particularly important. And the construction of many projects is the process of flying aircraft while maintaining, it is difficult to really wait until a project is perfect and then go online, like Bitcoin is an exception, after all, the function and incentive mechanism of Bitcoin are very simple.
For most projects, it is a process of running while iterating after going online, and Ethereum is a typical one. Today's Ethereum, compared with when it was first launched, great changes have taken place in performance, architecture and even consensus mechanism, but the continuous construction of ecology has made Ethereum the giant of the industry.
Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that some public chain or Layer2 projects are rushing to go online when the technical solution is not fully mature.
From the perspective of the current Layer2 ecological pattern, after Arbitrum launched the main network in September 2021, TVL quickly soared to more than $1 billion in just a few days. Although OP went online one month earlier than Arbitrum, the stability and experience of the main network were not as expected when it went online. TVL is not growing as fast as Arbitrum. However, compared with zkSync and Starknet, which launched the main network a year later, ZK projects have indeed taken the lead in ecological construction.
However, as the first ZK Rollup on the mainnet, the data of zkSync Era after its launch is also remarkable.
Unlike Starknet, which uses a separate contract language, zkSync Era uses language tools that are very compatible with the existing Ethereum mainnet, and this high compatibility allows projects on the Ethereum mainnet to migrate to the zkSync Era mainnet rather smoothly, just like the early Arbitrum. The TVL of zkSync Era rose rapidly after the main network was launched, and the TVL of more than 2 billion US dollars in just 20 days was no less than the current champion Arbitrum's initial online status.
So, although zkSync Era TVL currently accounts for less than 5% of the total Layer2, but at the current rate of nearly 20% weekly growth, is it the future?

02 zkSync Ecosystem Overview

At present, Arbitrum's TVL is 5.6 billion US dollars, accounting for about 65% of the TVL of all Layer2 projects. After a year and a half of ecological construction, Arbitrum has more than 500 DApps at present. In particular, GMX, which once continued to occupy the hot list in the bear market (launched on Arbitrum in September 2021), is the ace project of Arbitrum's ecological native.
It can be said that Arbitrum's rise all the way and these native quality projects are inseparable, even if the Token distribution incentive has been completed, Arbitrum TVL still ranks first. Although at the beginning, Arbitrum allowed a large number of Ethereum Dapps to be silky migrated and completed the initial TVL accumulation due to its high compatibility with the Ethereum main network EVM, it really continued to maintain its competitive advantage by relying on its native high-quality DApps on the chain.
So, what about the zkSync ecosystem? Is there a strength project like GMX on the horizon?
According to the statistics of the zkSync official website, nearly 300 Dapps have been connected to the zkSync Era ecosystem, although some of them are Uniswap, 1inch, LayerZero and other star projects. The only projects that are actually online are those labeled "Live on Era," and there are only 58 in total. Moreover, from the list of projects that have been launched, it is basically difficult to see the figure of well-known Dapps.
It can be said that the current zkSync ecosystem is still in a relatively poor state, although TVL growth is fast, but the total amount is not high. The number one SyncSwap accounts for more than 41% of DeFi TVL on the entire chain, and the top ten DApp TVL accounts for nearly 96%. Moreover, these Dapps are dominated by Dex, coupled with several loan agreements, and at present, there is no project with some unique innovative advantages like GMX in the top ten projects.
In addition, although the number of independent addresses in the current zkSync Era has grown very rapidly, reaching 920,700 in just two months, and the number of ETH on the cross-chain bridge has also broken through a new high of more than 280,000, but from the perspective of the ETH balance of each address, more than 61.4% of the address balance is lower than 0.1ETH. 30.6% of addresses have a balance between 0.1 and 1ETH, 7.7% of addresses have a balance between 1 and 10 Eth, and the remaining 0.3% of addresses have a balance above 10ETH.
At present, due to the lack of Uniswap, AAVE and other star projects on zkSync Era, it is difficult to undertake the locking warehouse of large funds (participate in DEX liquidity mining or loan agreements), and the vast majority of the wool users. In particular, zkSync clearly stated that it would release tokens. Under Arbitrum's innovative token incentive model, the expectation of zkSync airdrop led to the influx of a large number of cashmere studios, bringing an explosive growth in the number of independent addresses.
However, the projects really worth participating in the interaction are limited, nothing more than the DEX, borrow, and several commonly used cross-chain Bridges that TVL ranks relatively high. As for the official cross-chain bridge of zkSync, because currently it can only be cross-chain to zkSync from the Ethereum main network, the cost is 5-6U, and even more than 10U when the chain is congested, so for the Woollen Party, unless it is for the expected interaction of airdrop, other cross-chain Bridges are generally chosen when they really need to use funds. After all, the cost savings are more than 70%.

03 zkSync Era Current issues

As the first ZKEVM project to go online on the main network, although the number of independent addresses in zkSync Era reached more than 920,000 in just two months, surpassing all other mainstream Layer2 projects, and TVL also achieved explosive growth, compared with Arbitrum and other star Layer2 projects, The problem is also very obvious:
1. It is still in the early stage, although there are many cooperation projects announced on the official website, the star projects have not really been launched. The number of native projects that have been launched is small, and the quality is uneven, and it is difficult to rely on star projects with institutional endorsement and a huge community base to accumulate TVL quickly.
2. The top listed native projects are mainly Dex and borrowing, and there are no projects with unique competitive advantages like GMX to break through. For users, besides the attraction of Token distribution, there are not many other reasons to use it. How to compete with Arbitrum and Optimism of Layer2, which occupy the first-mover advantage, to obtain high-quality TVL is a problem that has to be considered.
3. The complexity of zkSync Era technology leads to the instability of its blocks. Compared with Optimistic Rollup projects such as Arbitrum and Optimism, ZK Rollup project is much more difficult in technical development. zkSync is relatively compatible with the Ethereum mainnet, but Dapps on the zkSync Era still have some compatibility challenges. However, in the future, with the further maturity of ZKEVM technology and the arrival of the decentralization stage, these problems will be effectively improved.

04 Summary

In addition to the traditional star Layer2 project, the Layer2 plate that Binance, Coinbase, ConsenSys and other giants have laid out is likely to be the light of the next round of bull market, zkSync Era can run out? There are still too many variables.