Interchain Ecosystem Map

Cito Zone is super thrilled to unveil the Interchain Ecosystem Map, a project we've been working on for many months.

This ecosystem map features all projects that leverage or build on top of one of the following three technologies:

1) Interchain Stack: Cosmos SDK, CometBFT, IBC, CosmWasm, CosmJS.
2) Modular chains that utilize Celestia for DA.
3) Bitcoin aligned projects that build on or around Babylon.

And fulfill on of the following two criteria:

A) FDV > $10M
B) 24h trading volume > $10K

Map Breakdown

The Interchain Ecosystem Map is composed of various categories, ranging from AI to DeFi & RWAs, but also including sectors like gaming, NFTs, DePIN, privacy, and a bunch of infrastructure providers that make the interchain hum.

Enjoy exploring the ever-expanding interchain 👨🏽‍🚀🌌

AI agents & infrastructure

There are several top-tier AI projects being built on the Interchain Stack, including infra providers like Akash with it's AI Supercloud providing cheap and permissionless GPUs to the world, as well as projects working on AI agents like the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance.

Other promising AI projects such as Allora and Warden are under development.

DePIN

The Interchain Stack is the perfect toolkit for all kinds of DePIN projects, as it offers full customization and sovereignty over the stack.

Developers have full control over the stack and can make adjustments tailored to their application's specific needs and requirements.

RWAs

Of course, Real World Asset projects are also part of the interchain, and there are heavy weights with the likes of Provenance, Noble and Mantra.

These are all purpse-built Appchains that specialize on very specific use cases like the tokenization of Real Estate, Commodities, Equities, Treasuries, Fiat currency, etc.

DeFi

DeFi across the Interchain is thriving, with several spot DEXs, perp DEXs, launchpads, and multiple lending protocols contributing to it.

On top, there are numerous L1 chains that focus on DeFi-specific sectors, catering to very specific use cases or targeting niche audiences.

NFTs

NFT chains and marketplaces on the interchain may not be as famous and established as their counterparts on Solana and Ethereum, yet there are several blue-chip collections like Bad Kids, CelestineSloths, or Rekt Gang that are well-known beyond the interchain.

Gaming

Gaming has been flying under the radar for years, but there are very promising projects like Saga building out purpose-built infrastructure to facilitate game developers in launching their own gaming chains.

Other projects, such as Passage are working on making virtual experiences like online meetings, events, and education more human and interactive.

Memes

While meme launchpads do exist, a 'degen' culture of meme coin traders has never really developed in Cosmos, unlike over on Solana.

Yet, the Interchain Stack offers unique capabilities of building out entire meme chains, such as Unicorn Chain or Chichuahua Chain, and soon the Lazy Chain will be showcasing.

Liquid Staking & Restaking

Liquid Staking was originally invented in Cosmos, but soon became more prevalent in Ethereum with protocols like Lido.

It is a very competitive sector, with key players like Stride, MilkyWay and Drop competing for market share.

Privacy

There's arguably no other tech stack better suited for privacy application development than the Interchain Stack.

Numerous projects are tackling the privacy problem from different angles, offering privacy solutions to the broader Interchain.

Interoperability

The Interchain was built with interoperability in mind. The vision has always been for sovereign Appchains to be interoperable via IBC.

Many other interoperability protocols, such as Axelar, Hyperlane, or Union, are building on top of IBC, expanding it to other ecosystems or complementing it with their own interoperability solutions.

Modularity

Celestia, a L1 chain built on the Interchain Stack, ushered in a new era of blockchain design, called modularity.

It inspired many new design philosophies and applications uniquely enabled by modular blockchain architecture.

#Buildwhatever

Intents & Chain Abstraction

The drawback of the modular design is that it introduces friction points like asynchronous composability and liquidity fragmentation.

Chain Abstraction aims to solve these issues, and there are numerous projects going after this very problem.

BTC Aligned

Babylon ushered in a Bitcoin Renaissance and an anew interest in Bitcoin DeFi.

Many BTC L2s are about to launch, and BTC liquid & restaking protocols are already live. Additionally, numerous other BTC aligned projects offering BTC yield are under development.

General Purpose Chains

For everyone who is not eager to build out their own Appchain, there are several smart contract platforms that offer fertile ground to deploy all kinds of applications.

Builders can choose between the EVM or CosmWasm as their preferred VM.

Atom Economic Zone (AEZ)

An alliance of Consumer Chains has formed around the Cosmos Hub that leverage the Hub's validator set and it's economic security.

Neutron and Stride were the first two chains to join the AEZ via ICS 1, while the other projects are about to go live very soon via ICS 2, aka as Permissionless Interchain Security.

IP and Media

Purpose-built L1 chains, such as Story Protocol and Omniflix, chose the Interchain Stack to build their L1s on.

It gives them full control over the stack and sovereignty to create a protocol tailored to very unique use cases, like on-chain IP or video streaming.

The same is true for SoFi or ReFi protocols like Chain4Energy and Medibloc.

Wallets

The two major interchain wallets are Keplr and Leap wallet.

The OKX wallet is arguable the best choice when interacting with the Bitcoins ecosystem built around Babylon.

Furthermore, there are chain or use-case specific wallets like Prax or the Namada wallet that were purpose built for special privacy use cases.

Interchain Tooling

Build whatever you like, taking advantage of the Interchain Stack, DAO tooling, and a plethora of modular tools that are highly compatible with each other.

Core Contributors

There is no single entity in charge of the interchain.

It is a decentralized ecosystem consisting of numerous independent teams from all over the world that contribute to the technical development of the Interchain Stack and the continued growth and expansion of the interchain.

Oracles

A broad choice of oracles is available to every Appchain or dApp, allowing them to select from a variety of options.

Validators

The unique benefit of Appchains is having full control over the validator set. This means that the protocol can request its validators to perform special tasks, such as running an off-chain order books, capturing MEV for the protocol itself, feeding external price data into the protocol, and much more.

Validators are the unsung heroes of the interchain.

That's it for this week, folks! Thanks for reading.

This was the very first version of the Interchain Ecosystem Map and we don't expect it to be perfect.

Hence, if there are any chains, dApps or other projects we missed, pls reach out to us so that we can include them in the next version.

The Interchain Ecosystem Map will be updated on a monthly basis.

Disclaimer

This article is intended to educate readers about certain topics and does not constitute financial advice in any way.