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RootData: 2023 Web3 Industry Development Research Report and Annual Top List

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The Web3 industry as a whole shows a strong recovery trend. Bitcoin's highest annual growth rate reached 160%. The return on investment leads the world's major asset classes. Bitcoin spot ETFs have become a new entry channel for incremental funds.

Original Title: "RootData: 2023 Web3 Industry Development Research Report and Annual Top List (Full Text)"

Original Author: RootData Research

Web3 industry overall development trend characteristics

1.1, Bitcoin leads the global asset growth, and Bitcoin spot ETF will promote the long-term development of the industry.

1.2, the total financing amount in 2023 is 9.043 billion US dollars, and the linkage between primary and secondary markets will help the industry enter a new cycle.

1.3, the semi-primary market is becoming a new option for investment or exit.

1.4, Infrastructure and CeFi will dominate the development of the Web3 industry in 2023, with 6 new unicorns added.

1.5, the number of bankruptcies of Web3 projects will decrease by 50% in 2023.

Web3 Asset Development Characteristics and Sector Trend Analysis

2.1, The essence of the four waves of innovation in the Web3 industry is to find the native assets with the largest consensus.

2.2, the number of Web3 developers increased by 66% year-on-year, and the Ethereum ecosystem has overwhelming advantages.

2.3, Web3 popular section rotation: L1/L2, DeFi, GameFi are still the most watched tracks in the market.

2.4, Stanford produces the most Web3 practitioners, and Google-related projects have the highest financing amount.

Web3 Capital Flow Characteristics and Trend Analysis

3.1, Analysis of Investment Style and Activity of Web3 Investment Institutions in 2023.

3.2, Analysis of the Increase and Decrease of Investment Institutions' Actions in Web3 in 2023.

3.3, Research and Analysis of Top Ten Annual Financing Projects in the Infrastructure Track.

3.4, Research and Analysis of the Top Ten Annual Financing Projects in the DeFi Field.

3.5, Analysis of the Top Ten Annual Financing Projects in the CeFi Track.

3.6, Research and Analysis of the Top Ten GameFi Financing Projects in the Year.

2023年ROOTDATA LIST榜单

4.1, Web3 Industry Top 50 Projects

4.2, Web3 Industry Top 100 Investment Institutions.

4.3, Web3 Industry Vertical Ranking List.

· CeFi Track Top20 Projects

· Layer1 Track Top20 Projects

· GameFi Track Top20 Projects· DeFi Track Top20 Projects· Layer2 Track Top20 Projects· SocialFi Top20 Projects in the Industry

a16z Crypto prefers leading and making large investments

a16z Crypto prefers to lead and make large investments in the infrastructure, gaming, and entertainment sectors. They maintain an active investment posture. Typical investment cases include Gensyn, Mythical Games, Proof of Play, Story Protocol, and CCP Games.

By 2023, over 10 institutions will lead at least 8 rounds of investment.

From the perspective of lead investment frequency, in 2023, Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain, Bitkraft Ventures, Dragonfly, 1kx, Hack VC, Shima Capital, Jump Crypto, and ABCDE Capital are among the top ten, with at least 8 lead investments.

3.2, Analysis of the Rise and Fall of Investment Institutions in Web3 in 2023: Animoca Brands has the largest contraction in the number of investments, with 85 institutions investing more than 10 times throughout the year.

· In terms of investment quantity, 85 investors made more than 10 investments and 9 investors made more than 30 investments, which is a significant decrease compared to 2022. This reflects that the majority of investment institutions have been affected by difficulties in fundraising and lack of confidence, resulting in a significant reduction in investment frequency.

· Among them, investment institutions such as Animoca Brands, GSR, Coinbase Venture, Shima Capital, Spartan Group, a16z, Paradigm, Circle Ventures, Mirana Ventures, etc. all experienced a significant decline in investment volume in 2023, with a decrease of more than 40%.

· Web3 investment institutions are generally facing fundraising difficulties, with only Blockchain Capital, HashKey Capital, CMCC Global, Bitkraft Ventures, No Limit Holdings and other institutions announcing fundraising amounts exceeding 50 million US dollars.

· Meanwhile, a small number of investment institutions are also accelerating their investment frequency to inject momentum into the bleak market. According to statistics, institutions such as ABCDE Capital, Superscrypt, Foresight Ventures, OKX Ventures, Sora Ventures, and No Limit Holdings have all significantly increased their investment numbers in 2023, with an increase of over 50%.

· During the end-of-year Bitcoin ecosystem boom, institutions such as ABCDE Capital, Sora Ventures, and Waterdrip Capital remained active and became the main investors in Bitcoin ecosystem projects.

3.3, Infrastructure Track: Cross-chain direction sees the largest financing case of the year, enterprise-level infrastructure and wallet direction are sought after by capital

The largest funding case of the year in the cross-chain field has emerged.

Wormhole announced the completion of a $225 million financing in November 2023, becoming the highest-funded project of the year. Cross-chain is also one of the hottest industry trends in 2023. With the widespread emergence of Layer1, Layer2, and even Layer3, the demand for cross-chain communication of users' assets and data is rapidly increasing. Wormhole and LayerZero have broken down the barriers between various blockchains through cross-chain communication.

Wallets receive capital support as traffic entry points

As the user traffic entrance, the wallet track is still the target of capital injection. The encrypted hardware wallet Ledger and the social login wallet Magic have both received huge financing, reflecting users' needs for wallet security and convenience. Their development and evolution are key to the blockchain carrying the next billion-level users.

Enterprise-level infrastructure has become a key focus of layout.

Enterprise-level infrastructure has become a key focus of layout. Digital asset custody and issuance infrastructure Auradine, and blockchain development platform QuickNode are mainly aimed at enterprise-level customers, helping enterprises solve asset issuance, application development and other issues on the asset side, thus delivering a steady stream of high-quality assets and projects to the market.

3.4, DeFi Track: DEX competition continues to intensify, derivatives and RWA become industry focus

Derivative agreements have become the focus of capital attention.

Derivative agreements are the focus of the DeFi industry, revolving around perpetual contracts, synthetic assets, structured products, and other directions. Protocols such as SynFutures, Thetanuts Finance, and Synthetix have received capital injection, with their core highlights being more transparent, permissionless operating mechanisms and more user-friendly products.

DEX competition intensifies in compliance, order book, cross-chain and other directions

There are also many highlights in the decentralized trading track, such as Mauve, which focuses on compliance, tanX, which focuses on order book trading, and iZUMi Finance, which focuses on multi-chain. They are competing for market share from leading platforms like Uniswap through market segmentation and functionality, and are highly anticipated by investment institutions.

Market has high expectations for RWA

RWA assets are becoming the most eye-catching direction in the DeFi market. Due to the stable yields of assets such as real estate, government bonds, and bills, RWA can provide sustainable and diverse real yields for the crypto market. Superstate, founded by the founder of Compound, is one of the latest main forces in the RWA track. The project is committed to purchasing short-term US government bonds and tokenizing them on the chain, which can be directly traded and circulated on the chain.

3.5, CeFi Track: The total financing amount in the main track has the highest decline, and Bitcoin ecological opportunities are sought after by capital

The highest decline in the main track.

In 2023, the total financing amount of the CeFi track was 1.18 billion US dollars, a decrease of 75%. This is the largest decline among the main tracks. This is mainly due to the impact of the malignant explosion events in CeFi since 2022.

Bitcoin-related financial services receive capital bets

Financial services related to Bitcoin are the most capital-intensive, with Swan, Unchained, and River Financial all providing solutions for the Bitcoin ecosystem, including savings, lending, and brokerage services. As the most valuable cryptocurrency asset, Bitcoin offers its holders a variety of solutions that are brewing with tremendous untapped value.

Exchange experiences a turning point