We often say that the best projects are the ones that build in Bear Market. It is easy to build when there is FOMO and hype (Bull Market), much more difficult in negative times where investor emphasis is low. These projects are building in the dark and trying to innovate. Each of these has a particular or innovative feature. You remember that I have not been paid nor are they investment advice, also because none of them have the token yet. You study how they work, don't just think about speculation. If these are valid projects, in most cases the token will do well.

AZTEC
The main investor is Jack Dorsey but we also find Lightning Ventures, Aleka Capital, Hivemind Ventures, Ride Wave Ventures and Visary Capital. The idea behind Aztec is that of adoption, in fact Lets users buy, sell, and store BTC on a mobile app.
The dapp will be user friendly and through the BTC Voucher System it will be possible to buy BTC without KYC (clearly these are small amounts as it is not possible to buy large quantities due to anti-money laundering laws). Through Azteco it will be possible to purchase Giftcards which will be redeemable in physical stores.

LAGRANGE LABS
This project has received major investments from 1kx, Maven11, Lattice Fund, CMT Digital, Daedalus Angels. What problems are they trying to solve? Bridge/Messaging protocols have limited cross-chain compatibility, often being a 1-to-1 relationship
Lagrange will allow different chains to share info with a single chain (N to 1 chain relationship), it will be useful for calculating average price of asset across multiple DEX on multiple chains
Initially it will be EVM compatible, but planning to expand to Solana, Cosmos, Aptos and Sui.

AIRSTACK
The main investors are Superscrypt, NGC Ventures, Hashed Emergent, UOB Venture, WWVentures, Signum Capital, Perridon Ventures, Kyber Ventures. Airstack is a DeFi repository that allows devs to use on-chain and cross-chain data across multiple blockchains
It is also based on AI allowing crosschain data processing. It can access data from Web3 platforms and dApps, including Lens Protocol, Ethereum Name Service domains, Farcaster, and almost every project on Polygon. Airstack is currently free.

DOLOMITE
In this case the investors are Draper Goren Holm, NGC, Coinbase Ventures, WWVentures, RR2 Capital, 6th Man Ventures (6MV), Token Metrics Venture. This protocol ( Dolomite )will be natively created on Arbitrum. Perp DEX offering spot/margin trading, lending/borrowing, protocol flow, yield farming and other DeFi strategies. High composability allowing for strategies like hedging/shorting IL, delta neutral GLP, etc

HOURGLASS
Investors are Electric Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, Tribe Capital, hackVC and other angel investors. Some notable partnerships are Frax, Convex and Lido. Hourglass on Ethereum blockchain allows trading of Time-Bound Tokens (TBT).TBT are semi-fungible tokens that represent staked assets in DeFi protocols. For example, if you stake frxETH for 5 months in Frax Finance, your 5-month-til-unlock frxETH receipt is a TBT. Hourglass provides liquidity for TBT. Hourglass empowers protocols to incentivize long-term usage while providing their users critical flexibility and liquidity. All this can also be applied to the web3 ecosystem.

Other projects to follow (there are no tokens yet, I'm talking about the protocol infrastructure):

-InfinitePools: in this DEX traders can take advantage of unlimited leverage on any asset, with no liquidation and no oracles.
Its concept is fascinating as they match the risk profile of each stakeholder, thanks to innovative features.

-GammaSwap: Will launch on Arbitrum. Revolutionize "impermanent gains" (volatility trading) and increase the possibility of profit for all stakeholders. LP will earn more and decrease their impermanent loss risk.

-Swell Network: Liquid staking protocol focusing on UX and simplifying accessibility. The liquid token is called swETH and aims to provide higher yields than others. The number of TVL and stakers keep increasing as they launch their "Voyage" campaign.

-Maverick: it tackles issues that Uni V3 users are facing or the management of active position management (concentrated liquidity). They are enabling several features, like automatically repositioning liquidity distribution.

-Contango: they're making Expirable Futures possible. Basically, it eliminates funding rates and puts in maturity date when you want to open long/short leverage position.

-Brahma: they've built DeFi leverage vaults for a while and now are launching Console (still in Alpha access). Console performs as a vault but you have full control over every transaction in your own safe.

-Smilee Finance: they package volatility into products (aka vaults) and enhance UX to capitalize on impermanent gains. Smilee Finance is building "Decentralized Volatility Products", making "Impermanent Gains" possible for users on Arbitrum.

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