Ethereum Ecosystem
Overview of Ethereum applications — DeFi blue chips, L2 networks, NFT, DAO.
Ethereum is home to the largest DeFi ecosystem — "financial internet" with hundreds of billions locked in protocols.
DeFi Blue Chips:
•Uniswap (UNI) — #1 spot DEX, $2T+ annual volume
•Aave (AAVE) — #1 lending protocol
•Curve (CRV) — stablecoin DEX
•MakerDAO (MKR) — DAI stablecoin protocol
•Compound (COMP) — lending pioneer
•Lido (LDO) — dominant liquid staking
Layer 2 ecosystem:
•Arbitrum — #1 L2 by TVL, Arbitrum One + Nova
•Optimism — OP Stack (base for Coinbase Base)
•Base — Coinbase L2, massive adoption 2024
•Polygon zkEVM — ZK L2 from Polygon team
•zkSync Era — ZK rollup with native AA
•Starknet — StarkEx ZK (dYdX v3)
NFT ecosystem:
•OpenSea — traditionally leading
•Blur — trader-focused, airdrop farming
•X2Y2 — lower fees
•Foundation — creator-focused
•ENS (.eth) — Ethereum Name Service
Wallets:
•MetaMask — #1 by installations
•Rainbow — mobile, user-friendly
•Rabby — more secure than MM
•Ledger Live — hardware + software
DAO infrastructure:
•Snapshot — off-chain voting (free)
•Tally — on-chain governance
•Gnosis Safe — multisig treasury