OKX Ventures Q3 Report Continued Focus on Major Ecosystems like Bitcoin Ethereum and AI

1. Industry Insights
In terms of macroeconomic regulation, the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cuts have brought macro-level benefits, benefiting major DeFi protocols.
In September, the Fed significantly lowered interest rates by 50 basis points, bringing the federal funds rate to between 4.75% and 5%, resulting in short-term volatility, but the long-term outlook for Bitcoin remains robust.
As the global financial system deepens its reliance on monetary expansion, BTC, as a global asset independent of central bank policies, continues to attract interest, with cumulative net inflows into spot ETFs reaching $21.3 billion.
Ethereum mainnet data remains stable, with expectations for the Pectra upgrade enhancing the network’s functionality, security, and efficiency.
The average daily active users on-chain are 480,000, with daily transactions reaching 1.2 million, while the comprehensive usage rates of USDC, USDT, and DAI across major lending platforms have surged to 87%, marking the highest level since late June 2024. With rising DeFi yields, the interest rate cuts are expected to reignite the crypto credit market and drive robust on-chain activity.
On the public chain ecosystem level, major public chains represented by Sui have shown impressive data performance, with more innovations waiting to be discovered. TVL has surpassed $1.4 billion, with DEX daily trading volume reaching $180 million, and both daily transaction volume and active address numbers hitting new highs.
The NAVI Protocol-led liquidity protocol has a TVL exceeding $500 million, with the leading DEX Cetus ranking in the top 10 for DEX trading volume across all chains, achieving over $1 billion in weekly trading volume.
The trading volume of mainstream assets in the SUI ecosystem is steadily increasing, with a significant surge in trading volume for Memecoins and community assets. Therefore, we are also optimistic about projects like aPriori, represented by parallel blockchains.
The “super cycle” concept of memes has garnered more attention, bringing new variables to AI development and drawing more interest to entertainment IP.
The total market capitalization of AI Memecoins has surpassed $2 billion, with the average trading volume of Memecoins increasing by more than five times compared to last year.
The craze for Terminals of Truth and GOAT has introduced new use cases for AI-generated content, meme culture, and speculative market behavior, driving Solana to exceed 4.5 million on-chain transactions in a single day and peak daily active users at 6.9 million, with Meme-related DEXs setting new fee records.
Overview of OKX Ventures Q3 Investment Projects
OKX Ventures’ investment focus in Q3 covers the Bitcoin ecosystem, Ethereum and other layer 1 networks, as well as AI and blockchain data platforms, participating in investments in projects like zkLink, Monad, aPriori, Space and Time, and Prodia. Below are details related to these projects.



1. zkLink
zkLink is a multi-chain decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure based on zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology, aimed at addressing the problems of fragmented liquidity and high cross-chain transaction costs in the current blockchain ecosystem.
By establishing an aggregated Layer 3 zkEVM network (zkLink Nova), it achieves seamless connection and liquidity aggregation between Ethereum and its Layer 2 networks.
As the first aggregated Layer 3 zkEVM network, zkLink Nova solves the liquidity fragmentation issue on Ethereum L2, allowing DApps to be seamlessly deployed across multiple L2s.
It provides a customized scaling engine for high-performance ZK applications, supporting various application scenarios including spot trading, derivatives trading, and NFT trading.
The main problems the project addresses:
Cross-chain liquidity aggregation and seamless multi-chain interaction: zkLink connects different L1 and L2 networks through its protocol, simplifying the cross-chain transaction process, allowing users to trade freely across different blockchains without frequent network or wallet switches.
Rich ecosystem projects: zkLink has partnered with multiple projects to form a rich ecosystem network, attracting a large number of users to participate in its DeFi activities.
Innovative technological solutions: By combining ZK-Rollup and oracle networks, zkLink provides an efficient and secure cross-chain interaction mechanism, greatly enhancing ecosystem integration efficiency.
Enhancing user experience and promoting the development of the decentralized finance ecosystem, becoming an important bridge connecting different blockchains.
2. Monad
Monad is a layer 1 blockchain designed to provide extremely high performance and scalability. It supports 10,000 transactions per second, has a block time of 1 second, and single confirmation finality. Monad is compatible with the existing Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), allowing developers to easily migrate and use existing applications and libraries.
Monad’s low hardware requirements enable ordinary consumer-grade hardware to run nodes, providing a feasible path for decentralization. Additionally, the design of MonadDB allows most state to be stored on SSDs rather than RAM, thereby reducing node operating costs and improving scalability.
Project features:
High performance: Monad offers 10,000 transactions per second, ensuring a smooth user experience.
Low fees: Nearly zero transaction fees enable applications to scale significantly.
Fast confirmation: 1 second block time and single confirmation mechanism enhance transaction efficiency.
EVM compatibility: 100% EVM compatible, supporting applications in the existing Ethereum ecosystem.
Scalable decentralization: Low hardware requirements allow more users to participate in the network, promoting the decentralization process.
Innovative execution model: Utilizing optimistic parallel execution and asynchronous execution effectively enhances transaction processing capacity.
3. aPriori
aPriori is a MEV infrastructure and liquidity staking protocol built specifically for the era of parallel execution, natively implemented on the Monad platform.
The project aims to optimize the processing efficiency of blockchain transactions through an innovative block space auction mechanism, thereby reducing the junk trading behavior triggered by MEV. aPriori enhances user experience and overall network efficiency by ensuring consistency between block producers and network objectives.
The main problems the project addresses:
Block space auction: Due to the limited nature of block space and the monopoly of block producers in transaction ordering, aPriori introduces a block space auction mechanism. This mechanism transparently reveals the true economic value of transactions through competitive bidding, thereby improving resource allocation efficiency.
Minimizing junk transactions: aPriori’s auction mechanism reduces the occurrence of junk transactions caused by MEV by altering the dominant strategy of searchers. This design ensures the orderliness and predictability of transaction execution, enhancing user experience.
Incentive compatibility: In the post-MEV era, aPriori’s auction mechanism ensures incentive compatibility, making transaction fees based on economic value rather than private assessments by block producers, thereby optimizing user experience.
Transparency and fairness: By introducing competitive bidding, aPriori ensures the transparency of the transaction processing process and reduces the likelihood of unfair behavior (such as front-running).
4. Space and Time
Space and Time is a decentralized data warehouse designed for blockchain applications. Founded in 2022, the project aims to provide a next-generation data platform that meets the needs of decentralized applications (dApps), decentralized finance (DeFi), and other projects requiring strong analytical capabilities.
Space and Time combines enterprise-grade SQL and API, allowing users to seamlessly integrate and analyze on-chain and off-chain data in a single query.
It supports multi-chain operations, allowing users to easily access and analyze data across multiple blockchains. By introducing SQL proof technology, Space and Time ensures the security, integrity, and transparency of data without compromising performance.
The main features of the project:
Decentralized architecture: Space and Time is the first Web3-native data warehouse, fully decentralized, ensuring the security and privacy of user data.
Enterprise-grade SQL and API: Users can query and load data using familiar SQL commands and tools, simplifying the data processing workflow.
Multi-chain support: The platform allows users to seamlessly access and analyze data across multiple blockchains, enhancing flexibility and scalability.
SQL proof technology: This technology not only ensures the security of data but also maintains its integrity and transparency, providing confidence to users.
Real-time data processing: Supports high-capacity real-time transaction processing while leveraging column storage and GPU acceleration for large-scale data set analysis.
Customizable dashboards: The platform provides dynamic visualization capabilities, allowing users to customize dashboards based on their brand needs and automatically generate charts and visual content.
5. Prodia
Prodia is an innovative platform focused on artificial intelligence and distributed cloud computing, aiming to provide image and music generation services through its powerful API.
The platform utilizes advanced machine learning models, particularly Stable Diffusion technology, to convert text into high-quality images.
Additionally, Prodia has built a distributed GPU network to provide efficient cloud computing services at lower costs, supporting various application scenarios. Prodia not only provides advanced AI tools for users but also promotes innovation and development in cloud computing services.
The main features of the project:
AI content generation capability: Prodia offers a variety of models, achieving efficient text-to-image conversion through its API, meeting user demands for high-quality content generation.
Distributed cloud computing: Leveraging a distributed GPU network, Prodia can provide powerful computing capabilities at lower costs, adapting to different project needs.
Diverse application scenarios: The platform is not only suitable for image generation but also extends to music generation and other areas, providing creators with more flexibility and choices.
User-friendly API: Prodia’s API is designed to be simple and easy to use, enabling developers to quickly integrate its functionalities, improving development efficiency.
Web3 infrastructure: By combining Web3 technology, Prodia offers decentralized services, enhancing data security and user privacy protection.
3. Conclusion
From the changes observed in Q3, OKX Ventures is very optimistic about the market outlook. The macroeconomic interest rate cuts serve as a significant benefit, Ethereum continues to innovate, on-chain data shows new highs, and the public chain ecosystem represented by SUI, along with the cultural innovation brought by memes, provide continuous growth momentum for the industry.
This quarter, we focus on projects with strategic potential that not only align with market growth opportunities but also demonstrate unique competitive advantages in their respective fields.
Whether in Bitcoin’s re-staking and DeFi applications, cross-chain liquidity integration, or improvements in blockchain performance and data processing optimization, these projects are driving technological breakthroughs and expanding application scenarios.
Moreover, we continue to be optimistic about the prospects of AI-generated content and distributed computing, which will provide new momentum for innovative development in the industry in the future.
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Risk Warning and Disclaimer
This article is for reference only. The views expressed in this article represent the author’s opinions and do not reflect the positions of OKX or the aforementioned institutions. This article does not intend to provide (i) investment advice or recommendations; (ii) offers or solicitations to purchase, sell, or hold digital assets; (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. We do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of such information. Holding digital assets (including stablecoins and NFTs) involves high risks and may fluctuate significantly. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for you based on your financial situation. Please consult your legal/tax/investment professionals regarding your specific circumstances. You are solely responsible for understanding and complying with applicable local laws and regulations.