Ecosystem Overview：The EOS ecosystem is a diversified digital platform covering decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, non-fungible token (NFT) markets, game applications and other fields. As the market changes, the EOS ecosystem has also gone through different stages of development. In this article, we will take a deep dive into EOS’s road to resurgence and the various components of its ecosystem.
The road to renaissance of EOS
In 2021, the number of daily active addresses for EOS’s decentralized applications (dapps) increased significantly, reaching a peak in January 2022. However, as the market shifts, the number of active addresses begins to decline in 2022. This trend is closely related to the overall change in the crypto market from a bull market to a bear market. During this period, active dapps include virtual property game Upland, decentralized social application Yup, MMO strategy game Prospectors, play-and-earn game Crypto Dynasty, and NFT market AtomicHub.
Across all contract interactions, the Upland application has even more daily unique addresses than all other contracts on EOS combined. However, the situation is quite different when we only consider new address interactions. New address interaction mainly refers to calling the contract's address on the same day as the address is created. Among these new addresses, Upland and its token accounted for only 6% of unique address contract interactions, which is far lower than the 56% of all contract interactions. This may indicate that the creators of the new addresses are generally for holding or staking EOS on the network, rather than targeting a specific dapp.
Challenges and opportunities of the DeFi ecosystem
Over the past year, EOS’s DeFi total value locked (TVL) has dropped 62% in USD terms, ranking it approximately 37th among all chains. However, TVL in EOS fell by only 32%, suggesting that the fall in USD TVL is partly attributable to price depreciation. More than 75% of TVL comes from the decentralized trading and lending protocol Defibox. As of February 21, 2023, Defibox’s average daily trading volume was approximately US$470,000, and its top trading pool EOS/USDT had a TVL of approximately US$6.2 million.
EOS is one of 11 blockchains where Tether officially supports native USDT minting and redemption. In December 2022, Binance Exchange launched EOS native USDT, further enhancing liquidity and online access. Currently, the number of USDT tokens in circulation on EOS has exceeded 85 million.
To support the EOS DeFi ecosystem, the ENF working group proposed two plans:
Yield+: This liquidity incentive plan was launched in the third quarter of 2022 and aims to incentivize the development of the protocol by allocating EOS to DeFi protocols as liquidity mining rewards. The protocol needs to have at least 200,000 TVL denominated in EOS and pass KYC registration and other requirements. Currently, 14 protocols have joined this project.
Recover+: This program provides insurance for protocols participating in Yield+, covers bug bounties and white hat rewards, and includes a crisis management framework to help affected protocols handle emergencies of stolen funds.
NFT and the booming development of games
In the EOS ecosystem, Upland is the most popular dapp, a digital real estate and metaverse game, with a year-to-date average of about 20,000 daily active addresses and 60 daily new addresses since its launch in 2019. Other games such as Prospectors, Crypto Dynasty and Wombat are also gradually increasing activity, but Upland's performance is still ahead.
Additionally, AtomicHub is the EOS network’s primary NFT marketplace, with over 5,000 collectibles. As of March 2, 2023, AtomicHub’s daily sales were $1,400, showing how active the NFT market is.
Community Support and Grants Program
Since the community reform, EOS has established multiple grant programs to promote the growth of the ecosystem. Among them, Pomelo is an open source public welfare crowdfunding platform modeled on Gitcoin, which uses a secondary fundraising mechanism to increase personal donations. Since its launch in Q4 2021, Pomelo has raised a total of $2.6 million across hundreds of projects.
In addition, the ENF Direct Grant Framework has provided grants directly to projects based on milestone completion, with 11 of 52 applications approved since the second quarter of 2022, involving US$211,000.
Venture Capital and Hackathons
In November 2022, EOS block producers passed a proposal to mint 68 million EOS for the ecosystem fund. In addition to investing in ecosystem projects, ENV also plans to launch accelerator and incubator programs to further support innovation.
In the fourth quarter of 2022, ENF hosted two hackathons, offering generous bonuses to EOS builders. These activities not only stimulate the participation of developers, but also provide new thinking for the technological progress of EOS.
Future technology roadmap
ENF has been actively reviewing all aspects of the EOS network and looking for areas for improvement. There are plans to release a new white paper detailing the direction of the technology upgrade. The technology roadmap will include a new consensus mechanism and EVM solutions that bring instant finality.
In terms of consensus mechanism, ENF works with other members of the alliance to reform Antelope’s consensus mechanism. There are plans to implement modified variants of HotStuff to achieve near-instant finality. This upgrade will not only solve Antelope’s three-minute transaction process problem, but will also lay a solid foundation for the future development of the EOS network.
in conclusion
The road to EOS's revival is full of challenges and opportunities. Despite the pressure of market fluctuations and technological improvements, the EOS ecosystem still shows strong vitality and innovation potential. Through the continuous development of diversified applications such as DeFi, NFT, and games, as well as the support of the community and the continuous upgrading of technology, EOS is expected to occupy an important position in the future blockchain ecosystem. As various plans advance, EOS will continue to provide users with better services and experiences, and promote the prosperity and development of the entire ecosystem.