Crypto Innovations Highlighted in 2024 Include Pendle, Fluid, and GEODNET
This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter.
Pendle
Pendle focuses on yield trading products, evolving from stablecoins and "DeFi 2.0" narratives to liquid staking tokens and real-world assets during market fluctuations. In early 2024, Pendle's Total Value Locked (TVL) surged from millions to billions due to the points meta. Its Principle Tokens (PT) and Yield Token (YT) are essential for leveraged points and fixed yield farms.
Fluid
Fluid innovatively combines successful DeFi elements like Uniswap v3's concentrated liquidity and Aave’s utilization rate curves, revamping traditional Automated Market Maker (AMM) liquidity provisioning. Its "smart debt" and "smart collateral" mechanisms allow for multi-million dollar DEX liquidity pools with effectively $0 in TVL, enhancing capital efficiency through user debts from lending protocols.
Ethena
USDe, developed by Ethena, reached a $6 billion market cap within a year, showcasing its competitive edge in the challenging stablecoin sector. Unlike previous stablecoins, which balanced centralization and scalability, Ethena established strategic partnerships with centralized exchanges (CEXs) and created a scalable stablecoin leveraging arbitrage opportunities in CEX-DEX perpetual funding rates.
GEODNET
To achieve centimeter-level accuracy in GPS technology, traditional companies deploy extensive real-time kinematic (RTK) networks globally. GEODNET utilizes crypto token incentives to scale RTK network deployment, establishing over 10,000 stations across 140 countries, exceeding the combined 5,000 stations from legacy providers Trimble and Hexagon. GEODNET's cost-effective deployment model reduces base station costs to approximately $700, compared to $25,000 using traditional methods.
Virtuals
Virtuals serves as a "picks and shovel" approach in the AI agent sector, allowing users to create tokenized AI agents. Following criteria for a $420k market cap, agents' native tokens are linked to a DEX liquidity pool (Uniswap v2). Built on Base, Virtuals has generated over 12,000 AI agents, including the popular anime bot Luna. Its innovation integrates LLM models, crypto wallets, value-driven tokenomics, NFTs, and IPFS for data storage.