Web3 application explosion: Consumer Summer will appear in 2025

In addition to studying projects and participating in transactions at the micro level, we also need to pay attention to the macro changes and phased progress of the entire industry.

From DeFi Summer (decentralized finance summer) to Consumer Summer (summer of consumer applications), the transformation from financial applications to broader consumer applications represents the maturity and further popularization of the Web3 industry, which our industry is about to enter. new stage.

1. Review of DeFi Summer

DeFi Summer occurred in 2020 and was mainly driven by the maturity of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.

Protocols such as Curve, Compound, Uniswap, and AAVE are technically mature enough to support large-scale user participation, which is the intrinsic driving force of the industry.

The more critical external driving force is the global low interest rate environment and the desire for high returns.

There is plenty of liquidity in the market, and there is a need for higher returns, so liquidity pours into the DeFi system.

DeFi Summer provides ordinary users with a new way to participate in financial activities, and at the same time further amplifies liquidity by adding leverage.

As a result, DeFi Summer emerged, a summer of huge liquidity explosion.

2. What is Consumer Summer?

Consumer Summer has already begun, and the long-awaited Web3 application explosion in our industry is about to appear.

We will see more decentralized applications for ordinary consumers, such as decentralized social networking (users can control their own data and privacy), Web3 games (truly allowing players to own game assets), and decentralized payments (providing transparency) and platforms that reduce transaction fees), etc.

These applications are nothing new, we have all seen or heard of them before, but why mention them now?

Many applications were not launched in the last round or earlier. One of the key factors is that the blockchain infrastructure is immature and cannot support applications with high-frequency usage scenarios, such as the decentralized content platform "Bihu".

Vitalik, the founder of Ethereum, has discussed this: Many interesting projects started in 2015 and 2016, but as of 2020, their development is still limited. A big part of the reason is transaction fees. If these projects want to truly develop and become mainstream applications, they must have the required TPS.

You can imagine if you were a regular social media user and you discovered that there was a novel social media app, but every time you posted or did anything you had to pay $1, $5, sometimes even $15, then This is completely unfeasible.

But for financial applications, this does not pose a problem. So it is a pity that many decentralized social networking and other projects failed to survive the DeFi Summer period.

Now, with the improvement of market demand, technology maturity, user experience and other dimensions, we have now reached a critical node for the explosion of consumer applications.

During DeFi Summer, various DeFi protocols focused on TVL (Total Value Locked), while various consumer applications in Consumer Summer focused on the growth of the user base.

Just like the complex interactions and synergies between different projects during DeFi Summer, Consumer Summer can also see the further development of the Web3 application ecosystem, forming a more complex application network and mutually promoting growth.

3. The infrastructure layer is making preparations

Currently preparing for Consumer Summer in three dimensions:

(1) Public chain layer: The public chain is the soil where applications appear

Ethereum Layer 2 has improved the performance of Ethereum in disguise. Nowadays, Layer 2 can be said to be numerous.

However, Ethereum Layer 2 Morph, which Bitget focuses on supporting, is the first public chain that clearly calls out to serve consumers, and its focus is mainly on the application layer.

Morph employs a three-tiered growth strategy:

The first level: Transform DeFi projects, making traditional DeFi projects more accessible to ordinary users and lowering the entry barrier for new users.

The second layer: on-chain application scenarios, focusing on how to bring daily users to the chain.

The third layer: payment solution, Morph will launch Morph Pay, which supports legal currency and encrypted payments, simplifying the transaction process and helping users use blockchain services more easily.

Let’s continue to observe what will eventually grow on consumer-grade public chains like Morph.

(2) Middle layer: Various technical middleware provide common services between applications and blockchain

At the middleware layer, the most noteworthy narrative is chain abstraction, and the leader of chain abstraction is Particle Network.

Particle Network has been deepening the chain abstract narrative, providing chain abstraction middleware, and has launched chain abstraction benchmark products such as UniversalX.

The three most painful problems that users encounter when using blockchain applications are: different chains require different wallets, the Gas tokens on each chain are different, and how to transfer assets across chains.

Chain abstraction is to extract common and essential parts from different chains, so that users do not need to understand the characteristics of different underlying chains, or even perceive the existence of various chains. They only need to use the product to complete their intentions.

Throughout the development history of Particle Network, from wallet abstraction to account abstraction to chain abstraction, its product development is very focused and it develops vertically and deeply in wallet technology services.

The overall process is to iterate step by step based on existing users and products, solve problems at different stages, and integrate many cutting-edge narratives in the Web3 industry.

Today, Particle Network has expanded into decentralized exchange business. UniversalX is actually an exchange form and integrates various wallet capabilities.

(3) Development layer: Implemented to the specific application development level

OKX OS is a complete set of Web3 development solutions provided by OKX. The access to public chains and protocols has been standardized, which greatly reduces the development cycle and cost, including the four major scenarios of wallet, DEX, Marketplace, and DeFi.

OKX OS has the most powerful data query capability and can deeply analyze data such as assets, transaction history, and project information. It has supported 60+ networks, including popular networks such as EVM, UTXO, Solana, TON, and TRON, and also supports the most cutting-edge ecology such as Inscription.

What many people don’t know is that many well-known Web3 projects are built using OKX OS related interfaces.

The most direct feeling of our ordinary C-end users is that the user experience of OKX wallet is very smooth, but this is the final effect, and a lot of infrastructure is needed to support it.

OKX has gained recognition and success in the C-end market. In the process of serving C-end users, OKX has accumulated a lot of technical capabilities, especially in processing large-scale data, optimizing transaction processes, and providing reliable online services. Significant advantages.

Now OKX has opened up its underlying capabilities to the industry for use. OKX's success in the C-side market has helped it build trust in the B-side market. Corporate customers believe that OKX can provide stable and reliable services.

OKX has not only become an iconic product on the C-side, but has also become an important industry infrastructure on the B-side.

4. Summarize

There are three core factors in the timing of the emergence of Consumer Summer: technological maturity, market demand, and user awareness.

Our industry has been building infrastructure in the past few years and has made a lot of preparations in these three dimensions.

We can be ready to welcome Consumer Summer in 2025. The explosion of the application layer will bring many opportunities to ordinary users. Please participate in this new flow.