Old Layer 1 platforms are gradually being overshadowed by emerging names such as Aptos, Sui Network, Aleo, Monad, etc. So in the context of next generation Layer 1 platforms are making steady progress in To build an ecosystem, everyone will find out in the article below what old Layer 1 platforms like Near Protocol, Solana, Avalanche, Polkadot,… are doing to maintain their position.
To better understand this article, people can refer to some of the documents below:
- What is Solana (SOL)? Solana Cryptocurrency Overview
- What is NEAR Protocol (NEAR)? Near Protocol Cryptocurrency Overview
- What is Avalanche (AVAX)? Avalanche Cryptocurrency Overview
What Are Old Layer 1s Doing?
Solana – Consistent with the original goal
Solana is one of the most prominent Layer 1s in the period 2020 – 2022, standing out in many different aspects from SOL’s price to the ecosystem and the scandals when FTX collapsed or Alameda Research encountered financial difficulties. . If we only talk about non-EVM Blockchain, it can be affirmed that Solana is the most successful non-EVM Blockchain platform ever and can continue to maintain in the future if Sui or Aptos do not have real breakthroughs. in many respects,
When the Crypto winter came, the whole market was affected, including Solana, but that did not stop Solana, the development team continued to upgrade and improve the network to completely solve the problems. still exists with Solana. Some of the big problems that Solana is facing
- Financial factors: There are still “hidden corners” between Solana and FTX or Alameda Research that we do not know. FTX or Alameda still hold a large amount of SOL and if this amount of SOL is pushed out to the market, this will be an extremely big challenge for the development team. It is possible that Solana needs to call for more capital to maintain financial security for the network.
- Solana ecosystem There is also a problem when DeFi projects are in the process of being strongly eliminated. Besides, some famous NFT collections are leaving Solana such as DeGods, Y00ts,…
- Solana Network Still having problems when the number of people skyrockets leading to the network “collapse”, this seriously affects the decentralization of the network. It is this factor that makes Whales, the organization, quite cautious in approaching Solana.
Besides a series of problems, Solana Foundation has clear solutions for each problem that occurs. To continue developing the Solana ecosystem, the Solana Foundation is offering solutions including:
- Continue to organize events such as Hackathon Online, Hackathon Global, Hacker House, Break Point,… to attract developers to the Solana ecosystem. It can be said that Solana is the Layer 1 platform that is most active in attracting developers through events.
- The next generation of projects on the Solana ecosystem is starting to germinate with many names such as Marginfi – a project in the Lending & Borrowing segment, JitoSOL – a project in the Liquid Staking Derivatives segment and a few names from the previous cycle are still there. are developing such as Marinade Finance, Solend, UXD Protocol, Orca, Raydium,…
To improve the Solana network to become more efficient and optimal, a number of solutions are being implemented including:
- Fire Dancer is a solution built and developed by Jump Crypto with support from Solana Foundation. With Fire Dancer, Solana aims for millions of TPS and the ultimate goal of Mass Adoption.
- A series of solutions are offered such as QUIC, Fee Markets,… of Solana Foundation and are being deployed on the Testnet network and even the Beta Mainnet. With these updates, the Solana network is expected to become more stable and scalable in the future.
- Not just VCs, not just the Solana Foundation, but projects on the Solana ecosystem also build products to help the network become more efficient. A typical example is Jito Labs.
To improve financial matters and with the vision of being less dependent on FTX or Alameda Research. It can be said that Solana is one of the old Layer 1s that works relatively well today.
To gain a deeper and more detailed understanding of the Solana ecosystem, people can refer to some of the articles below:
- Solana Ecosystem: Hackathon With 813 New Projects, Network Upgrades & Many Other Outstanding Updates
- Potential Next Generation Projects on Solana Ecosystem
- THE HAK SHOW #2 | Solana And Her Quest To Regain Glory
Avalanche – Betting on Gaming & Real World Assets (RWAs)
Avalanche is one of the teams that grasped trends best in the last cycle with the story of Avalanche C Chain with the EVM Blockchain trend. But up to now, Avalanche is making changes that is shifting the focus of development from C Chain to P Chain with Subnet.
Subnet is Avalanche’s general vision when aiming for an Internet of Blockchain model similar to Cosmos, Polkadot, zkSync’s ZK Stack or Optimism’s Superchain. Avalanche started shifting its development focus from C Chain to Subnet from the time when the Crypto market started to decline.
Avalanche’s Subnet ecosystem had a relatively successful early period when DeFi Kingdoms – the largest DeFi project combining GameFi on Harmony officially moved to Avalanche, besides a number of Game Subnets but everything. has been overshadowed when the Crypto market officially enters winter.
Currently, the Avalanche Foundation is still focusing on P Chain and Subnet, C Chain is no longer paid too much attention, even the largest DEX platform on Avalanche has had to go in the direction of Multichain to find more users and revenue. Through Avalanche combining with many large Web2 units to build Subnets, it can be seen that Avalanche is placing a lot of money on the Gaming segment for the next cycle. Some of the prominent Subnets on Avalanche include:
- GUNZ: Subnet built by Gunzilla Games – Studio specializing in AAA Games.
- Blitz: Subnet built by TSM – an esports company.
- Beam: Subnet built by Mertit Circle DAO – Gaming DAOs with over 60 games.
- UPTN: Built by SK Planet – the e-commerce division of SK group (behind the electric sports team from SKT T1 now T1).
- DOS: Built by DOS Labs – a Game Studio with over 400K regular players.
- IntainMARKETS: Built by Intain – a company specializing in Structure Finance.
It can be seen that Avalanche has bet 100% on Subnet to compete with Layer 2, Layer 3 on Ethereum and the spearhead is Gaming. Not only that, Avalanche showed its grasp of the trend by announcing a $50M VISTA fund investing in Real World Asset (RWA).
Some updated articles about the Avalanche ecosystem include:
- Avalanche Betting Ecosystem Gaming Subnets
Near Protocol – Ambiguous direction in development
Near Protocol is one of the prominent Layer 1 platforms in the late period of strong market growth. At 2021 – 2022, Near Protocol emerges with 2 notable features such as:
- It is the Layer 1 platform that successfully raised the largest amount of money in the market with a total raised amount of up to $533M with leading VCs in the market such as A16Z, Tiger Global, Alameda Research, Dragonfly Capital, Mechanism Capital,…
- Near Protocol solves the scaling problem through Sharding – a solution similar to what Ethereum is aiming for.
Because of the above two factors and some basic pieces of the ecosystem such as Rainbow – a Bridge platform connecting Ethereum and Near Protocol, Aurora – an EVM platform that helps DApps and Protocols on Ethereum to easily switch operations. on Near Protocol through Aurora and a few DeFi pieces such as Burrow Cash, Bastion Protocol, Ref Finance, Trisolaris,… have caused the cash flow of many other ecosystems to pour heavily into Near Protocol.
After the market went into winter, Near Protocol still developed and upgraded the network according to the original roadmap, but some problems occurred such as upgrading the network up to 9 months later than expected. In fact, the deployment of Chunk-Only Producers is expected by the Near team to be deployed in January 2022, so as of mid-July, the Testnet deployment will be 6.5 months later than the original roadmap.
In addition, if we compare the mainnet time, it has taken up to 9 months compared to the original roadmap.
One thing that has changed is that in the September 2021 article, the expected number of validators after updating Chunk-Only Producers was between 200 – 400 validators, but in the latest article the number has decreased to from 200 – 300 Validator Nodes. However, there are also times when Near Protocol is on time with its Roadmap when launching Phase 1 of Nightshade in September 2022.
So looking back now, how is Near Protocol doing?
If we look back in the past, Phase 3 is the final phase of upgrading and expanding the network expected to take place in Q4/2022, but according to the latest update, Phase 3 is Dynamic Resharding which will be implemented during this period. Q1/2024 – end of 2024. Currently, it is unclear whether Dynamic Resharding will be divided into several phases and begin implementation from the end of 2023 or the expected time within that period.
But whatever the result, Dynamic Resharding is currently about 1 year behind the original roadmap.
Besides, Near Protocol is currently aiming for a new vision, which is NEAR Blockchain Operating System (BOS). To put it simply, BOS aims to become a Blockchain Operating System similar to Linux, macOS or Windows, helping computers become user-friendly. Near Protocol also introduces a new type of operating system. called NEAR Discovery.
Near Foundation’s problem is that since operating systems such as macOS, Android, IOS, Windows,… are all very centralized, the world needs a completely decentralized operating system. To me, this is an extremely challenging direction for the development team because names like macOS, Android, IOS, Windows are all too big to fail. The chances of a Web3 project defeating Web2 at the present time are quite dim.
Reality shows that DeFi is still too risky compared to CeFi even though CeFi has legal issues.
General Comments About Old Layer 1 Platforms
After a long period of Downtrend, most projects have had certain changes in their development orientation in different ways:
- Solana remains steadfast in her path. What I find best about Solana is that they still solve the network problem and continue to develop their ecosystem with Hackathon events, Hacker House,…
- Avalanche has stopped focusing on C Chain to return to its original strategic direction of Internet of Blockchain with Subnet. Currently, Avalanche bets on Game projects, but the difference is that they have extremely powerful Builders from Web2.
- Near Protocol, in addition to upgrading the network, has given itself a vision and mission full of difficulties and challenges ahead with building a decentralized Operating System platform.
Summary
This is the first article to look back at the old and outstanding Layer 1s in the previous cycle. In the next articles we will come to Mina Protocol, Fantom, BNB Chain, Polygon and many other big names in the market as well as old Layer 1s in the previous cycle.