I hope your week is going well. Let’s dive into our DeFi ideas.

Shardeum, Another L1 on the Block

It feels like Layer 1 networks will never stop appearing and hunting for users. It’s a good thing.

Shardeum is good because it recently secured over $18 million in funding, and one of the investors is a well-known and OG traditional VC, Jane Street.

Testing is straightforward, as it is on any other EVM chain:

GMX on zkSync and Aptos

I hope these three projects are familiar to you and you get excited about seeing them all in a row. 

GMX is one of the most successful DEXes out there, which expectedly is reflected in the token price. Meanwhile, zkSync and Aptos are new networks with a solid potential of becoming the next bull run’s blue chips because they don’t have armies of bagholders like the previous cycle’s coins.

Why am I telling you that? There’s a project called Onchain Trade (OT), which looks very similar to GMX, but unlike GMX, it’s multichain. In short, testing it is a must.

Before we move on, here’s a trick you can use to make your testing easier. The team suggests doing the so-called “hard refresh” when encountering issues. You can easily forget how it’s done and get stuck. Here’s how to make sure you always hard refresh.

Assuming you’re using Google Chrome, use either Option + ⌘ + J (macOS) or Shift + CTRL + J (Windows/Linux) to open developer tools. Navigate to the “Network” tab and click “Disable cache.” As long as you have this sub-window open, every refresh will be the “hard” one.

Now, you need native test assets. Get them here and use this bridge to move some to zkSync and this one to move the rest to Arbitrum. For Aptos, use in-wallet faucets. For example, Petra has one.

Petra wallet. Remember to switch to the Testnet in the wallet’s settings.

Once you do all preparations, head to OT and request test tokens by clicking the respective button in the top right-hand corner. Then, try everything in the trade, pools, and earn tabs for each chain.

Get A Web 3.0 Passport

One of the pressing issues in the blockchain space is Sybil attacks. In simple terms, such attacks involve creating hundreds or sometimes thousands of accounts to increase the chances of winning something.

So far, there’s no efficient way to battle Sybil attacks. The best way remains retroactively airdropping tokens, but many teams are turning away from it because they want to hype their products up.

One of the promising ways to let many stress-testing products for rewards is on-chain identity. Such solutions can show teams which wallets are most likely used by people, not bots. 

This is why I suggest you create a Gitcoin Passport and verify as much as you can on it. You can attach socials to your MetaMask account or verify that you participated in various events and got POAP tokens.

I think it’s worth doing this before some project announces that only Gitcoin Passport holders will get access and the project’s website tumbles under heavy traffic. Gitcoin is one of the most reputable Ethereum entities, so that’s possible.

That’s it for today. Thank you for reading.