The Public Chain Landscape is Shifting: Who Will Be the Next Investment Hot Spot?

The Public Chain Landscape is Shifting: Who Will Be the Next Investment Hot Spot?Do you think the public chain landscape is already settled? In fact, the situation is quietly changing. Although Ethereum remains the core of DeFi and NFTs, its high fees make its user experience somewhat weak

The Public Chain Landscape is Shifting: Who Will Be the Next Investment Hot Spot?

Do you think the public chain landscape is already settled? In fact, the situation is quietly changing. Although Ethereum remains the core of DeFi and NFTs, its high fees make its user experience somewhat weak. Solana, with its high performance and low fees, has become a star in high-frequency trading and the NFT market. BNB, relying on Binance's massive user base, has attracted a large number of exchange users. Ton chain, with its deep integration with the Telegram community, has risen rapidly, and its on-chain activity and capital inflows show great potential. Meanwhile, emerging public chains like SUI and Aptos are aggressively catching up with their speed and efficiency. The market is constantly changing, opportunities are fleeting, each public chain has its own unique user base, transaction frequency, and activity, and changes in these indicators will directly affect the performance of its token price. This article will use core indicators such as on-chain data, active addresses, transaction fees, and total locked value (TVL) (data as of October 14, 2024) to conduct a detailed analysis of the current situation of these six major public chains, helping you to understand the potential investment opportunities in the next wave.

A Brief Review of the Six Major Public Chain Ecosystems

To find the next investment hot spot, we first need to understand the current situation of each public chain:

• Ethereum (ETH): As the world's first smart contract platform, Ethereum is considered the "big brother" of the public chain ecosystem. As of October 14, 2024, ETH price is $2560, it is still the core of DeFi and NFTs, but high transaction fees have discouraged many ordinary users.

• Solana (SOL): Focusing on high performance and low fees, Solana has attracted a large number of NFT and DeFi projects with its extremely fast transaction speed. However, network instability remains a hurdle that Solana needs to overcome.

• SUI: As an emerging public chain, SUI focuses on efficient transactions and smart contract execution. Currently, SUI has been approved by Grayscale Trust, and its coin price has hit an all-time high, its development potential cannot be ignored.

• Aptos (APT): Known as the "next Solana", Aptos has grown rapidly in its technical background and ecosystem expansion, attracting the attention of many developers.

• BNBChain (BNB): Relying on Binance's global user base, BNB has the advantage of high transaction volume and active users, with relatively low fees, making it popular among investors.

• Ton: Built by the team behind Telegram, Ton chain has risen rapidly using the powerful traffic of the Telegram community. Its decentralized ecosystem and messaging features have made Ton chain a popular choice in the Web3 community. Its on-chain data performance is eye-catching, attracting more and more users and projects.

Comparing On-Chain Data - Uncovering Hidden Opportunities and Risks

We will look at four key metrics: daily transaction volume, daily active addresses, transaction fees, and total locked value (TVL). These data can reveal the market performance of each public chain, providing investors with in-depth analysis.

1. The Trade-Off Between Daily Transaction Volume and Transaction Fees

Daily transaction volume and transaction fees are core metrics for measuring public chain activity and user experience. They reflect network usage frequency and cost.

• Analysis:

• Solana: Solana leads with a daily transaction volume of 40 million, thanks to its extremely low transaction fees (only $0.002 per transaction). This high-frequency trading environment is very suitable for NFT and DeFi transactions, allowing users to make small transactions without any hesitation. Solana's low fees and high transaction volume make it the preferred choice for high-frequency trading users.

• Ethereum (ETH): ETH's daily transaction volume is 1.1 million, but high transaction fees ($4 per transaction) remain ETH's biggest drawback. Despite this, Ethereum remains the preferred choice for high-value smart contracts and complex DeFi transactions.

• BNB: BNB has a daily transaction volume of 3.59 million, with transaction fees of $0.003 per transaction. Its strong user base is mainly due to the support of the Binance exchange. BNB's lower fees and high-frequency trading make it popular with small and medium-sized investors.

• Ton Chain: Ton chain has a daily transaction volume of 4.5 million, with fees of $0.005 per transaction. Compared to Solana, although the fees are slightly higher, relying on the traffic pool of the Telegram community, Ton chain's transaction frequency and activity continue to grow.

• APT and SUI: Aptos and SUI have daily transaction volumes of 2.7 million and 560,000 respectively. Their transaction fees are also relatively low. As emerging public chains, their low-cost features have attracted more and more users.

2. Daily Active Addresses - A Measure of User Engagement

Daily active addresses are an important indicator of network user activity, reflecting the ecosystem participation and user stickiness of a public chain.

• Analysis:

• SUI: SUI leads with 6.56 million daily active addresses, mainly due to the recent impressive performance of SUI's coin price. The token has broken through $2.2, hitting an all-time high, attracting more and more investors and developers to focus on this platform. According to Developer data, there are 1,108 developers on the Sui chain, an increase of about 64% in the past year, making it the fastest-growing public chain.

• BNB and Ton Chain: BNB has 900,000 daily active addresses on-chain, while Ton chain has reached 450,000. Supported by the Telegram community, Ton chain has gradually attracted more users, especially its influence in the Web3 community has expanded rapidly.

• Solana and APT: Solana and APT have 4.59 million and 560,000 daily active addresses respectively, performing well with their low fees and high transaction volumes.

• Ethereum (ETH): Ethereum has the lowest number of daily active addresses, only 300,000. Ethereum's user stickiness mainly comes from its high-value smart contracts and DeFi ecosystem.

3. Total Locked Value (TVL)- A Measure of Liquidity

Total locked value (TVL) reflects the liquidity and locking status of funds in a public chain ecosystem. It is usually used to measure the maturity of DeFi and the level of user trust in a platform.

• Analysis:

• Ethereum (ETH): ETH remains the absolute leader in the DeFi space, with a total locked value of $47 billion, far exceeding other public chains. A large number of DeFi protocols and NFT markets still choose Ethereum as their deployment platform, solidifying Ethereum's dominance in terms of liquidity and user trust.

• BNB: BNB's total locked value is $4.6 billion. Although there is a gap compared to Ethereum, its influence among small and medium-sized investors remains strong. BNB's low transaction fees and strong Binance ecosystem have maintained high liquidity.

• Solana (SOL): Solana's TVL is about $6 billion, slightly down from before, mainly due to the network instability problem leading to some capital outflow. However, Solana still holds an important position in the NFT market, and there are still active users and capital support in the DeFi field.

• Ton and APT: Ton chain's total locked value has reached $4 billion, while APT chain's total locked value has reached $7 billion. As two emerging public chains, APT, with its community support and innovative technical solutions, has quickly attracted capital inflows. In the future, as more projects and applications are deployed, the liquidity of Ton and APT chain is expected to further improve.

• SUI: According to DefiLlama data, Sui network's TVL has reached $1.13 billion, a new historical high. Nowadays, the amount of encrypted assets locked on the Sui chain has jumped to the top 7 in the entire blockchain market. Among them: NAVIProtocol TVL for lending protocol reached $493.65 million, with a weekly increase of 1.41%; Suilend TVL for lending platform reached $256.38 million, with a weekly increase of 13.41%; ScallopLend TVL for lending protocol reached $245.33 million, with a weekly increase of 2.21%.

How to Value Blockchain Layer1

Valuation of Layer1 public chains has always been a focus of the market. Compared to traditional financial markets, blockchain valuation is more complex, requiring comprehensive evaluation based on on-chain data and historical price trends. The following are some commonly used valuation methods to help investors determine if the token price of a particular public chain is overvalued or undervalued.

1. Network Value to Active Address Ratio (NVARatio)

NVA ratio measures the market value of each active user in the network by comparing the network market capitalization to the number of daily active addresses, similar to the price-to-sales ratio (P/SRatio) in traditional markets