Ethereum is the second-largest blockchain which is only next to Bitcoin. Using Ethereum enables accessing many products and services, and there is no central authority that will prevent access and block you from payment while using Ethereum DeFi. Many potential projects are available in this network that can make investments.
However, it is mandatory to check the projects from several angles before choosing the best Ethereum projects and many other platforms already challenging the dominance of ETH.
Top five ETH crypto projects to fund and follow now
There are 204 DeFi crypto projects available in the Ethereum blockchain network. Each of them contains different functionalities. The launching period of the Ethereum platform is 2014, the first smart contract platform. Thousands of dApp applications run on this network; the top five projects among them are:
- Chainlink (LINK: $7.9B)
- Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC: $11.5B)
- Fantom (FTM: $5.2B)
- Aave (AAVE: $2.3B)
- Uniswap (UNI: $7B)
Let’s take a quick look at these assets.
Chainlink (LINK)
What is Chainlink?
Chainlink is a blockchain abstraction layer that enables connecting smart contracts universally. The foundation year of this platform is 2019, and Sergey Nazarov is the CEO and co-founder of Chainlink. The native token of this platform LINK is floating near $16.95 today with a 24-H trading volume of $599,879,455. This token is currently available on many major exchanges, including CoinFLEX, Binance, OKX, FTX, and dYdX.
Other information is mentioned below:
- Fully diluted market cap: $16,970,183,100
- Live market cap: $7,925,237,565
- Total supply: 1,000,000,000 LINK
- Circulating supply: 467,009,549.52 LINK
- Max supply: 1,000,000,000 LINK
- Volume / market cap: 0.07602
How does Chainlink work?
Chainlink allows blockchains to interact securely with external events, data feeds, and payment methods through a decentralized oracle network. It also provides the critical off-chain information that requires smart contracts to become digital agreements’ dominant form.
Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC)
What is the Wrapped Bitcoin?
It is a tokenized version of Bitcoin backed by BTC and runs on the Ethereum blockchain network. The first announcement date of this platform is Oct 26, 2018, and the officially launching period is Jan 31, 2019. The native token of this platform, WBTC, is floating near $43833.51 today with a 24-H trading volume of $151,445,954. This token is currently available on many major exchanges, including Binance, FTX, Huobi Global, OKX, and KuCoin.
Other information is mentioned below:
- Fully diluted market cap: $11,569,957,621
- Live market cap: $11,536,384,792
- Total supply: 262,413 WBTC
- Circulating supply: 262,412.58 WBTC
- Max supply: not available
- Volume / market cap: 0.01327
How does Wrapped Bitcoin work?
Custodians and merchants constantly monitor WBTC, ensuring that the price is pegged to BTC all the time and allowing users to transfer liquidity between the ETH and BTC network in an autonomous and decentralized manner.
Fantom (FTM)
What is Fantom?
Fantom provides DeFi services to developers, a directed acyclic graph (DAG) smart contract platform that uses its bespoke consensus algorithm. The creation period of this platform is 2018 launches on the mainnet in 2019. The native token of this platform, FTM, is floating near $2.06 today with a 24-H trading volume of $739,752,787. This token is currently available on many major exchanges, including FTX, Binance, Bybit, OKX, and Mandala Exchange.
Other information is mentioned below:
- Fully diluted market cap: $6,537,292,314
- Live market cap: $5,218,699,965
- Total supply: 2,545,006,273 FTM
- Circulating supply: 2.55B FTM
- Max supply: 3,175,000,000 FTM
- Volume / market cap: 0.1405
How does Fantom work?
Fantom aims to solve issues relative to smart contracts, especially in transaction speed. It facilitates DeFi and other services to smart contracts using an independent consensus layer, a scratch-built consensus mechanism, and Lachesis.
Aave (AAVE)
What is AAVE?
AAVE, which means “ghost” in Finnish, is a DeFi protocol that allows users to borrow and lend crypto coins. The launching period of this platform is Nov 2017 and the rebranding period is Sep 2018, and the founder is Stani Kulechov. The native token of this platform, AAVE, is floating near $170.46 today with a 24-H trading volume of $148,118,514. This token is currently available on many major exchanges, including Binance, CoinFLEX, OKX, FTX, and dYdX.
Other information is mentioned below:
- Fully diluted market cap: $2,726,092,452
- Live market cap: $2,302,631,482
- Total supply: 16,000,000 AAVE
- Circulating supply: 13,514,620.05 AAVE
- Max supply: 16,000,000 AAVE
- Total Value Locked (TVL): $13,675,820,592
- Volume / market cap: 0.06502
How does AAVE work?
Borrowers can use tokens as collateral and take out loans, and lenders can earn interest by depositing digital assets in the pool. AAVE serves as a governance token and offers holders discount fees on the platform.
Uniswap (UNI)
What is Uniswap?
It is one of the most popular DEX platforms or decentralized trading protocols in the blockchain industry. The launching period of this platform is Nov 2018 and Ethereum developer Hayden Adams is the creator of Uniswap. The native token of this platform, UNI, is floating near $11.20 today with a 24-H trading volume of $179,741,991. This token is currently available on many major exchanges, including Binance, CoinFLEX, OKX, FTX, and dYdX.
Other information is mentioned below:
- Fully diluted market cap: $11,112,699,833
- Live market cap: $7,026,082,446
- Total supply: 1,000,000,000 UNI
- Circulating supply: 632,257,016.89 UNI
- Max supply: 1,000,000,000 UNI
- Total Value Locked (TVL): $7,783,955,024
- Volume / market cap: 0.02557
How does Uniswap work?
Uniswap facilitates the automated trading of DeFi tokens.
Pros & cons
| Pros | Cons |
| Ethereum is an entirely decentralized blockchain protocol. | It doesn’t allow change or modifies a smart contract after being active on the network. |
| These ETH projects allow lending and borrowing. | No governing body to assure your investments. |
| These projects are available to anyone and provide transaction privacy. | These ETH projects involve risks like any other crypto assets. |
Final thought
If you seek to diversify your investment in crypto assets, these Ethereum projects are worth looking at. The legal use cases of Ethereum are in financial services, legal contracts, hosting, and cloud services. Note that no single blockchain can solve every issue that arises.
