The upgraded Blob of Ethereum Dencun has given L2 more room for development and also accelerated the competition in the Layer2 track. Last week, VanEck published an article predicting the valuation of Ethereum Layer-2 in 2030, analyzing a series of L2 solutions from the perspectives of transaction pricing, developer experience, user experience, trust assumptions, and ecosystem size.

Based on these factors, VanEck predicted that the total market size of L2 will reach 1 trillion US dollars by 2030. This prediction has opened up the imagination space for the L2 track.

The report emphasizes that although the L2 ecosystem is highly competitive, there is still no obvious "winner takes all" feature. In fact, looking at the data changes of L2 this year, it can be found that the TVL differences between L2s can be easily changed in a short period of time, so the pattern of the L2 track is still undecided.

VanEck also gave five main indicators for evaluating L2 in the report:

Transaction pricing - the cost to the user of the transaction;

Developer experience - build products and applications easily;

User experience – simplicity of deposits, withdrawals and transactions;

Trust assumptions - liveness and safety assumptions;

The size of the ecosystem - how many interesting things there are to do.

If we apply these indicators to small-cap L2, can it help us discover potential L2 projects?

First, we screen a target based on the comparison of FDV, MC and TVL: we can find that the FDV/TVL values ​​of Arbitrum, polygon, optimism, manta and metis are relatively low, and among them, Metis has the lowest market value at present and the largest room for growth.

Does Metis have the potential to become a dark horse in L2? We use the five indicators given by VanEck to make a judgment:

1. Transaction Pricing - In terms of transaction user costs, one of Metis's main designs is to optimize data processing and smart contract execution mechanisms. By reducing reliance on the Ethereum main chain, it reduces transaction costs and shortens confirmation time. It also supports multiple revenue models and cost structures, including but not limited to generating revenue through transaction fees, data compression and smart contract execution, meeting the first requirement.

2. Developer experience - In terms of easy building of products and applications, the platform provides a complete set of security tools and frameworks to help developers build secure DApps, meeting the second requirement.

3. User experience - Metis has also made great efforts in the simplicity of deposits, withdrawals and transactions, especially in the fast deposit and withdrawal of assets and transaction confirmation, which meets the third requirement.

4. Trust Assumptions - Activity and Security Assumptions. This is explained in the VanEck article as follows: Security refers to the properties of the blockchain to ensure that only the account owner can access his/her assets, while activity refers to the safeguards that ensure that assets can be utilized. It also specifically mentions the concerns of L2 users about sorter failures. Currently, most L2s are single sorters, which are vulnerable. The most prominent advantage of Metis is its decentralized sorter design. Although it is slightly lacking in data availability mentioned by VanEck, its outstanding performance in security can also meet this requirement.

5. The last point is the activity and imagination of its on-chain ecology. At present, Metis's overall TVL and Volume have strong growth, and Metis has been actively building its ecology.

Combined with the characteristics of its decentralized sequencer, the first step of the Metis ecosystem should be to start with staking. The gameplay of LSD or even LSDfi or LRD may be repeated on Metis.

Recently, many key ecological projects have been launched one after another, such as the popular LSD project @ENKIProtocol, which has attracted much attention as the first LSD protocol on Metis, and its token $ENKI is now online. (It is recommended to focus on secondary opportunities)

Another innovative project, Vector Reserve @vectorreserve, has also launched Metis. Using Vector Reserve's LPD model, users can mint their METIS and METIS's LST tokens into vMETIS, which not only gives them $VEC rewards, but also further increases the income of METIS. vMETIS/METIS can also be put into @TheHerculesDEX to earn another reward.

Metis's ecosystem proposals are also very active, and the launch of Metis ecological projects has been accelerated through community voting. Currently, hundreds of projects have been launched on Metis through community verification.

It can be seen that the TVL bubble can be easily inflated through the leverage of circulating pledge. Through the cross-chain interoperability protocol, the liquidity of other blockchain networks can be connected to further increase the asset scale of the network. Therefore, the ecological development is also promising in the future.

In addition, VanEck also mentioned in the article: "While there is reason to believe that some L2 tokens will become valuable, the path to value appreciation is more difficult to predict than other crypto industries. In particular, L2 tokens are not even the base currency in their ecosystems." The empowerment of L2 tokens has always been one of the most concerned issues in the community, and $METIS has more advantages than most L2 tokens in terms of value capture.

Currently, Metis’ decentralized sorter is progressing smoothly and is about to enter the second phase, which mainly aims to realize: multiple transactions within a block, transaction pools, and sorter rewards.

In short, if we use the evaluation criteria given in the VanEck report, Metis is indeed a potential project. The most urgent work at present is the same as that of all public chains, which is ecological construction. However, judging from the recent ecological development, Metis seems to have a clear direction and is moving forward steadily.