Hedera has been listed as a leading crypto lending for providing financial services to web3 retail users. The Hedera ecosystem facilitates native token-based applications and protocols or can be used by developers to create an auditable log of verifiable, timestamped events for financial applications.
The blockchain has evolved from being a digital ledger to becoming a bridge between the traditional and digital worlds. With DeFi, decentralized finance goes beyond the traditional financial system by enabling smart structured financing tools for organizations, on top of a new way of doing business powered by blockchain, tokens, and smart contracts.
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have propelled a new era of decentralization. From cross-border payments to impacting the open market, DeFi lending protocols are the way of the future.
Hedera has made significant strides in cementing its position as a key player in web3, but it is important to take a step back, wipe the sweat from our brows, and examine the milestones and figures from the period.
As web3 participants flocked to Hedera NFT platforms with seamless minting & trading experiences, the Hedera NFT ecosystem exploded. In the early days of peer-to-peer digital asset trading, SaucerSwap, a pioneering decentralized exchange was launched, which brought about peer-to-peer trading without the well-known performance and fee drawbacks of DeFi.
Taking a look at some of the key highlights and network metrics over the last few months, we can paint a more optimistic picture of what lies ahead for the permissionless ecosystem that is Hedera.
Hedera NFTs
As a result of the huge success of our presence at NFT.NYC — showcasing incredible NFT artwork created by the Hedera community, educating attendees about the Hedera network and NFT ecosystem, and hosting a variety of speaking events — web3 was very excited about Hedera NFTs.
Hedera capitalized on this enduring excitement by changing its Twitter profile picture to an NFT, much to the delight of the community.
NFTs are currently only allowed to be used as profile pictures on Twitter if they are minted and held on Ethereum (ERC-721 or ERC-1155). Getting creative was the only option… and so we did.
As per Twitter’s rules, we showcased the amazing tools used in production on Hedera today; these tools benefit from the network’s unmatched cost-effectiveness, performance, and energy efficiency. The purpose of this report is to shed (sun)light on what NFT collectors, creators, developers, and even those who have not yet tried Hedera can expect from the platform in terms of its value and ease of access.
With the HashPack browser wallet, we demonstrated how simple it is to create a multi-functional wallet, fund it with HBAR, and begin our journey from Hedera to Ethereum.
With HashAxis, we minted our 1/1 NFT for a little over $1 and demonstrated that the NFT space isn’t only for the wealthy and crypto-elite, but is also accessible to anyone.
As a result of bridging this newly minted Hedera NFT with Ethereum using HashPort, we proved that digital assets can be bi-directionally moved from legacy networks like Ethereum to fast, fair, secure, and sustainable networks such as Hedera.
To reach carbon negativity, we then purchased offset credits from DOVU’s tokenized carbon marketplace, demonstrating that Hedera defies the common belief that distributed ledger technology has a negative impact on the environment. The Hedera platform not only has the lowest carbon footprint of any Layer-1 technology on the market but also goes above and beyond to make the network more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
Here is an in-depth and comprehensive look at the journey of this NFT from our resident NFT expert and Director of Marketing, Brady Gentile.
It was our goal to demonstrate how easy, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly minting NFTs on Hedera can be – while emphasizing some of the incredibly intuitive and innovative tools available.
Having set out to kickstart the NFT ecosystem on Hedera into overdrive for the summer, it would be an understatement to say we accomplished that goal… let’s take a look at some on-chain metrics!
NFT Ecosystem Metrics for Hedera
Creating this is all possible because of the foundational work that Swirlds Labs put in.
To further enhance our network offerings, we integrated our new and improved Smart Contract Service with the Hedera Token Service in February 2022 to provide a refined user experience for developers. The combination of these services ignited the flywheel of ecosystem growth, providing the foundational infrastructure and tooling necessary for the eruption that followed.
I would like to extend a special thanks to all of the development team at Swirlds Labs for their efforts in improving the network and keeping Hedera as the most performant Layer-1 solution on the market. Hedera Hot DeFi Summer was ready to take off with the network fundamentals in place and better than ever. The network has since then:
Although the broader NFT market has experienced considerable downturns, both in terms of sales and their corresponding values, the Hedera NFT ecosystem has shown significant strength. Hedera NFT showed consistent growth in defiance of wider industry trends, and nowhere was this more evident than on Zuse Market, where interest and volume increased exponentially.
Almost six months after launching in January 2022, Zuse Market reached the milestone of 10,000,000 HBAR (600,000 USD at the time of writing) transacted. It wasn’t long before the crypto community showed how hungry it was for Hedera NFTs during Hot Defi Summer.
From 10,000,000 HBAR transacted on the platform, 20,000,000 were transacted in less than a month. The Summer sun was still overhead as Zuse continued his work. Within two weeks, Zuse had collected another 10,000,000 HBAR, satisfying the appetites of both its existing community members and curious collectors across other networks.
A total of 55,000,000 HBAR have been transacted on Zuse Market today, and this number is expected to continue to rise as the network momentum continues.
We anticipate seeing more NFT marketplaces launch on Hedera as the ecosystem continues to grow, taking advantage of Hedera’s network services and connecting with the still largely untapped market of Hedera NFT collectors.
An NFT marketplace platform built on Hedera has been launched by Hedera Governing Council Member LG, enabling LG SmartTV owners to discover, buy, and sell Hedera NFTs directly from their TVs. With LG’s Art Lab platform integrated into SmartTV products, millions of users globally will have the opportunity to get involved in NFTs, which have enormous potential. It is an unprecedented move to bring the world into Web3 based on LG’s sales of over 27 million TVs last year. Today marks the first NFT drop from renowned sculptor and artist Barry X Ball.
Hedera has been hosting NFT marketplaces for quite a while, and the ecosystem continues to grow and diversify. Check out DeFi for more recent developments.
DeFi & SaucerSwap decentralized exchange
Switching between DeFi and SaucerSwapA significant milestone will be reached for the Hedera ecosystem on August 5th, 2022. SaucerSwap, the first decentralized exchange built on Hedera, was launched to the public on Friday after months of development, multiple instructional demos, and a comprehensive security audit. Furthermore, this is a momentous milestone not just for Hedera, but for the entire decentralized finance industry in the future.
It was evident from the very first demo that SaucerSwap was taking full advantage of the powerful and, at the time, unexplored capabilities of the Hedera network to provide a DeFi experience like no other. In just a few years, and perhaps even today, it might seem too good to be true for a Web3 participant to use a multi-function decentralized exchange that offers near-instant swaps for fractions of a cent.
After subsequent video demonstrations of SaucerSwap’s platform were released, and SaucerSwap’s Smart Contract security audits from Hacken returned a perfect score of 10/10, the community was emboldened, and those with skepticism were replaced by intrigue and excitement as the launch date approached. It was becoming increasingly apparent that what was once a Web3 fantasy was becoming a reality.
The Hedera community had been eagerly awaiting a decentralized exchange that leveraged the network’s unmatched speed and cost-efficiency, and when SaucerSwap launched, it made its voice heard. There were over $10M in Total Value Locked (TVL) in the platform’s liquidity pools, staking pools, and yield farms within days.
A DEX without slow confirmation times, unacceptable transaction fees, or network outages is finally here. This is finally a development team that is transparent, attentive, and responsive to the community. Finally, decentralized finance works as it should: with low gas fees, near-instant and fair transactions, and minimal entry barriers.
A steady increase in TVL followed in the days that followed, as the community – both the established Hedera community and crypto nomads seeking refuge from what has been accepted as normal DeFi – rushed in to experience the wonders of Hedera DeFi.
In just over a month, SaucerSwap has facilitated more than $36 million worth of trades, holding over $16 million TVL. The people have spoken, and are continuing to speak, and there is no better way to illustrate this than to examine Daily Active [DeFi] Ecosystem Accounts (DAEAs) – defined as wallets with at least one fungible token that has submitted DeFi transactions within 24 hours.
According to DAEA, the average for July was 471. The SaucerSwap launch was on August 5th, and over the next month, DAEA averaged 2,000 users, representing an increase of over 300% over the previous month. There was no doubt that the exponential growth of users from July to August was encouraging, but the question remained: was it just a momentary spike destined to crash as is so commonly seen in the crypto and web3 sectors?
Currently, DAEA is averaging over 6,500 per month in September, an increase of over 300% from month to month and an all-time high by a wide margin.
We are beyond excited about what the future holds for SaucerSwap and DeFi on Hedera given the incredible start and the high level of interest we have seen so far.
Summary
Summer brings heat, and no other layer-1 has brought fire like Hedera these past few months. The Hedera NFT ecosystem has bucked the general market trend and experienced consistent, impressive growth without signs of stopping.
Amidst a bearish DeFi market, SaucerSwap grew rapidly, attracting users eager for a DeFi experience that wasn’t hampered by restrictive, inconsistent fees, slow transaction times, or network outages. With our increasingly connected society, trustless, distributed systems enable revolutionary ideas that can finally prove their worth.
It’s inevitable that there will be those who celebrate crypto’s “death.” In the past, they have celebrated crypto’s death numerous times, and they will continue to do so in the future. Every “death” brings more and more enthusiasts to see the benefits of a decentralized future; an ever-growing community that constantly battles the critics on the value of Web3. Those who oppose Web3 say it is just a fad, a pointless technology that won’t last long, while enthusiasts proclaim that it has already cemented itself as an essential part of our technology revolution.
It is clear that Web3 won’t go away, but it is far from being fully integrated into our society. With Hedera, an ever-growing community of institutions, enterprises, and retailers realizes something that is becoming increasingly apparent: web3 is just getting started.
