2023 Crypto Market Review and Outlook: Innovation and Recovery Go Hand in Hand

In 2023, the crypto market has emerged with a recovery curve that shows positive growth, with asset values and market sentiment undergoing a favorable transformation. This year, the Bitcoin inscription craze, RWA tokenization, the DePIN revolution, and multiple innovations surrounding the term "link" have unfolded, including the Bitcoin spot ETF.

In March, a Web3 annual selection event themed "CONNECT" was held, aimed at discovering and honoring outstanding Web3 projects, teams, and individuals from the past year, linking Web3 with the real world, and connecting new and old cycles. After nearly two months of registration, online voting, and evaluations by a professional jury, a total of 123 projects/companies and 10 individuals stood out, winning 21 authoritative annual awards.

Based on multiple data dimensions such as the number of on-chain addresses, the number of smart contract deployments, the number of active developers, trading volume, and technological upgrades, three Annual Outstanding Contribution Awards were ultimately selected: Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Solana.

As a revolutionary new paradigm of the internet, the reconstruction of production relationships and value capture logic in the context of Web3 provides fertile ground for new business models and unlocks infinite possibilities for more innovative applications. The annual application list includes eight categories of awards: Annual Innovative Application, Annual Best DeFi, Annual Best GameFi, Annual Best SocialFi, Annual Best RWA, Annual Best DePIN, Annual Best AI + Web3 Combination, and Annual Most Popular NFT, ultimately selecting 55 annual applications.

The annual innovative applications are Worldcoin, Blast, SINOHOPE, De.Fi, and a certain Web3 platform.

The best DeFi of the year are EigenLayer, a certain DEX, a certain DEX, JustLend, Helix, ether.fi, Venus, GMX, Lido, and AAVE.

The annual best GameFi are Pixels, Matr1x Fire, BigTime, Illuvium, Shrapnel, Parallel, Seraph, Abyss World, Dark Forest, and MIR4.

The annual best SocialFi are Farcaster, TaskOn, Phaver, Galxe, and UXLINK.

The annual best RWA are Ondo Finance, Maker, KlimaDAO, Centrifuge, and Tangible.

The Annual Best DePINs are Render, Script Network, Fetch AI, BitTensor, and Filecoin.

The best AI + Web3 combinations of the year are Web3Go, Impakt, ChainGPT, Fetch AI, and rct AI.

The most popular NFTs of the year are Weirdo Ghost Gang, Bitcoin Frogs, Mocaverse, Memeland, Pizza Ninjas, Pudgy Penguins, Doodles, bitmap, Mad Lads, and Nobody.

Public chains have always been active at the center of the crypto stage, bringing more funds and user traffic to the crypto world. The annual public chain selection is based on several indicators such as the number of active users, the number of active developers, network fundamentals, total number of protocols, total fees, and technological advancements, ultimately selecting 5 most vibrant public chains and 20 most promising ecological projects for the year.

Most Vibrant Public Chains of the Year: Ethereum, Solana, Bitcoin, Sui, and Conflux.

The most promising projects in the Bitcoin ecosystem: Merlin Chain, Stacks, Particle Network, Nervos Network, and Bounce Finance.

The most promising projects in the Ethereum ecosystem: zkSync, EigenLayer, Linea, Taiko, and Puffer Finance.

The most promising projects in the Solana ecosystem: Jupiter, Pyth, Solana Mobile, Backpack, and Render.

The most promising projects in the Cosmos ecosystem: Berachain, Injective, Celestia, Dymension, and Sei.

The annual selection also chose 5 best tools of the year: MiniBridge, DeGame, DeBank, Etherscan, and RigSec.

Bitcoin has become the main focus of the market with the dual narrative of Ordinals and ETFs. Here are the 10 most popular inscriptions of the year: ORDI, SATS, ATOM, RATS, COOK, ETHS, AVAV, MICE, BNBS, and POLS.

MEME has become an undeniable part of encryption culture, showcasing the infinite creativity and possibilities of the crypto market. Here are the 10 most popular MEMEs of the year: PEPE, SHIB, BONK, DOGE, MEME, AIGOGE, SILLY, SMOG, WIF, FLOKI.

Selected 10 Best Investment Institutions of the Year: Certain Trading Platform Laboratory, A16Z, Certain Trading Platform Venture Capital, Amber Group, DWF Labs, Web3.com Ventures, Animoca Brands, Hashkey Capital, NGC Ventures, and SevenX Ventures.

Select 5 best exchanges of the year: a trading platform, a trading platform, HashKey Exchange, a trading platform, and BitMart Exchange.

Finally, the 10 most influential KOLs of the year are: Kevin, Biteye, Jian Shu, Phyrex, BITWU.ETH, Cos(, Yu Xian ), Eleven Landlord, Block Mr., Sleep Crazy in the Rain, and Geek Web3.

As the market size continues to set new records and application scenarios expand, encryption technology and assets have gradually stepped into the global mainstream view. In the future, the industry will develop towards a more stable and mature direction, and the space for imagination will be further expanded. This list aims to record and encourage participants and builders actively engaged in this wave of financial revolution.