The crypto world is filled with opportunities. If market participants manage to get in early, they can generate astronomical rewards. However, it is challenging to find up-and-coming projects with differentiating factors and a growing user base in the vast crypto landscape.
To help investors navigate through high-potential projects, this article breaks down the rising crypto projects in different market sectors, such as launchpads, GameFi, NFTs, and decentralized exchanges. Each one has something unique to offer and can prove to be an industry leader in the near future.
UpLift DAO
UpLift DAO runs a launchpad with many out-of-the-box attributes. It is breaking down entry barriers for all market participants, enabling them to access early-stage deals.. The UpLift community maintains a global presence, spanning over 80 countries.
It is one of the rising star projects in the fundraising ecosystem because of its rapid growth in terms of unique stakers and the amounts raised. Since November 2021, the launchpad has raised over 840,000 BUSD and attracted more than 7,000 active stakers.
Running on the Binance Smart Chain, UpLift launchpad provides market-wide exposure to all active IDO participants and LIFT token holders. UpLift’s lottery-based access facilitates equal investment opportunities for all types of investors at IDO allocation. The launchpad also integrated with Polygon to bring in emerging play-to-earn projects. The first P2E game launched on UpLift was NFT4Play.
Recognizing the growing usage rate of DEXs, UpLift added an AMM-based marketplace called Jumbo Exchange to the launchpad, raising 99,999 BUSD. The launchpad also supports a dedicated NFT marketplace based on NEAR protocol, Youminter.
Going forward, UpLift will explore other categories such as yield aggregators, asset management protocols, and infrastructure. This will add immense value to the average backer by participating in promising projects while earning side income and contributing to the DAO.
LooksRare
It is undeniable the kind of impact NFTs are having on the crypto industry as a whole. They have opened up over a dozen verticals in the digital asset collectible landscape, with marketplaces sitting at the top. Currently, the most interesting and community-favorite marketplace is LooksRare. While Open Sea still has a superior interface and sophisticated infrastructure, LooksRare is attracting way more users at a faster rate.
The main differentiator between LooksRare and other marketplaces is a reward system. It is something that has never been done before. Collectors now get rewarded for buying and selling NFTs. In addition to ETH rewards for making a sale, LooksRare also distributes platform fees in the form of LOOKS tokens to all the supporting stakers.
Initially, LooksRare offered an APY of over 600%, and after rewards halving, it came down to 200%. The NFT marketplace has added many more features to satisfy the community with free adjustments to listings, a stale offers dashboard, and a trait floor. While many believe the rewards system is not sustainable and most users are wash trading, LooksRare still exceeded expectations and kept on delivering. In the future, we can expect a more balanced incentive system and a plethora of features to streamline NFT trading.
Merit Circle
One of the hottest sectors in crypto is gaming. People want to participate in the play-to-earn economy and create additional sources of income. But the problem for mass participation is that a majority of players don’t have enough investment capital to buy NFTs and start earning. To fix this, gaming guilds like Merit Circle emerged.
By giving talented players the required NFTs, Merit Circle generates passive income. The players earn 70% of the profits, and the remaining goes to the treasury. The gaming guild managed to onboard more than 2750 players, with monthly growth of nearly 100, from all corners of the world.
Besides providing scholarships, Merit Circle invests in many emerging blockchain games that promote play-to-earn. Some of the well-known games played by MC players are Axie Infinity, Vulcan Verse, and Sidus Heroes.
Crabada
The play-to-earn movement initiated by Axie Infinity took the blockchain gaming world by storm. By giving back ownership to players and incentivizing their skills, P2E games provide an alternative source of active and passive income. With gaming gaining more prominence in the crypto industry and market participants seeing long-term value in NFTs, many new and emerging P2E games have formed with the intersection of DeFi.
Among the newly launched games, the one that stands out is Crabada. Like Axie Infinity, Crabada also adopted a dual token model with TUS and CRA tokens. While the former acts as in-game currency, facilitating looting, mining, and NFT lending, the latter is a governance token.
With high-level DeFi functionality and gameplay, Crabada is attracting thousands of players over to the Avalanche network. The performance and speed of Avalanche are also playing a crucial role in Crabada’s rapid growth. In less than six months, the game recorded 4.8 million transactions and onboarded over 7,000 active users.
Osmosis
Decentralized exchanges have risen to popularity in the DeFi ecosystem with their capital-efficient models and ability to provide users asset exposure across multiple blockchain networks. While AMM-based exchanges defined the decentralized environment for trading and asset swaps, they still lack a sense of customizability.
Suppose developers want to create a new AMM or increase market efficiency with new features. In that case, they have to build the infrastructure from the ground up, minimizing the importance of the product itself. To help protocols reduce time spent on AMM creation and elevate user experience, Osmosis is developing a cross-chain DEX built using Cosmos SDK.
Osmosis offers a plug-and-play model for developers to deploy an evolving decentralized exchange, meaning one can make dynamic adjustments to the bonding curve and customize parameters like swapping fees and token weights.
The cross-chain DEX also achieved a major milestone in reaching a total value locked of $1.5 billion. Osmosis spurred active interactions in the Cosmos ecosystem, helping people in the DeFi space see the true potential of interoperable blockchains and customizable DEXs.
Closing Thoughts
Crypto is always evolving, and as such, it can be overwhelming to track hundreds of newly launched projects and determine which one has the most potential. Joining a community like UpLift DAO and getting exposure to a full spectrum of projects improves your chances of success immensely. It is the best possible path for an average investor to have access to industry experts and IDO deals. All in all, the projects mentioned above have unique features and market opportunities worth checking out.
