What promising narratives are worth our attention in 2023?
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What promising narratives are worth our attention in 2023?
Now there are enough projects at the very bottom of their price range, with market caps absurdly low.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsWritten by: blocmates
Compiled by: TechFlow
There are now enough projects trading at rock-bottom prices with absurdly low market caps, creating potential for significant gains in 2023. On the other hand, many innovative yet-to-be-launched projects are also expected to go live. Below is a list:
There has already been much speculation about which projects, sectors, and narratives will shine in 2023. This isn't another prediction post—instead, I'll share where I'm placing my bets and why.
This space evolves rapidly, and I'm always open to revising my views when new information emerges. Disclaimer: Not financial advice.
Concentrated Liquidity
Becoming more useful—and actually profitable—for ordinary users and treasuries, or at the very least minimizing losses.
Uniswap V3 is great if you know what you're doing, but most people don't.
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Active management remains a major barrier to entry for average users.
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As an investment, UNI isn't a primary focus for me. Instead, I’m more interested in projects built on top of V3 and CL.
Arrakis Finance and PALM make providing liquidity on Uni v3 effortless. Panoptic leverages the deep liquidity of Uni v3 to offer options...
Other participants in concentrated liquidity:
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Trader Joe's LB includes revenue shares from sJOE stakers migrating to Arbitrum and USDC. They can also go where Uniswap cannot, as they aren’t constrained by the Ethereum Foundation.
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GammaSwapLabs allows users to hedge impermanent loss (IL), capture yield from IL, and bet on volatility. Their testnet is already live... I'm not sure whether incentives exist yet.
- Pool Sharks enables LPs to automatically buy more of the better-performing asset in a pair during rallies, protecting against IL.
Options AMMs
I don't think the narrative around options vaults will fade in 2023.
Lyra Finance, currently on Optimism, will deploy on Arbitrum and use GMX to hedge LP risk.
Other upcoming options AMMs include:
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IVX, incubated under NeworderDAO, is also launching on Arbitrum,
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Orbital from the Dopex and PlutusDAO ecosystem.
Others worth noting: Panoptic, GammaSwapLabs, and Pool Sharks...
LayerZero Ecosystem
OFTs (omnichain fungible tokens) will be increasingly adopted by projects—especially stablecoins—to enable bridgeless cross-chain functionality.
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Tapioca is a well-structured, thoughtfully designed project in my view. I admit bias—I know the team personally and have invested—but even so, this is one I’ve liked from day one and remain bullish on for 2023.
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Another L0 project occupying much of my attention is Interswap, enabling truly permissionless cross-chain swaps via LayerZero. Don’t confuse it with Stargate’s product—it’s entirely different, allowing any available asset to be traded across chains using L0.
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As a hedge on my LayerZero thesis, I like multi-chain infrastructure products such as Entanglefi, offering a one-stop solution for omnichain positions and native DeFi products on their own chain.
LSDs
This is obvious, and the sector will get crowded after Shanghai upgrade in March.
Nevertheless, I believe there’s still value to extract from $LDO, $RPL, and my favorite, $SWISE.
Eigenlayer
I’m still researching this, as there are many open questions.
But its premise is: staked ETH can be repurposed to secure infrastructure such as bridges, oracles, relayers, etc.
Stablecoins
I’d just say keep a close eye on GMOTrust...
$ZUSD and $GYEN are set for a big year.
Other stablecoins to watch include Tapioca DAO’s usd0, Redactedcartel’s $DINERO, Aave’s $GHO, and CurveFinance’s $crvUSD.
With all these developments in stablecoins, DeFi products catering specifically to stablecoins are also having their moment. Y2k Finance seems like a smart choice.
NFTfi
Sudoswap was the first genuinely innovative moment I've seen in crypto in a long time—a true zero-to-one breakthrough. My approach to this sector is allocating small amounts across multiple projects, keeping exposure while staying engaged.
Sudoswap and GumBall aProtocol are personal favorites.
Solana DeFi is experiencing a revival, but top-tier capital has disappeared. I’ll take the contrarian side on this sentiment…
HxroNetwork, JupiterExchange, and Orca are incredible products. I’ve allocated heavily in SOL and maximized my lock-up of $HXRO.
RWAs
MakerDAO has done well acquiring off-chain treasury bills and bonds, and bringing such infrastructure on-chain could be impactful. StreamDeFi is doing interesting work here.
Fixed Rates & Interest Rate Swaps
Voltz and InverseFinance—fixed-rate products are needed in DeFi, but so far haven't gained traction.
This market is valued at $10 trillion. Bringing these widely used markets into DeFi could be massive.
Crypto x AI
Hmm… I believe AI-related projects will gain momentum and may represent an easily digestible narrative for mainstream users.
Leonardo Ai is one of the coolest projects I’ve come across.
Early OG generative art NFTs like Fidenzas and Squiggles might see strong performance. If you can't afford them outright, fragmented NFT markets could offer accessible exposure.
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blocmates.
