Degen Chain, a new layer-3 blockchain, has attracted significant attention and transactional volume since its introduction on Thursday. Its native DEGEN token has zoomed 500% since its release.

The network does not have a supported stablecoin and primarily housed speculative tokens as of Monday, but that hasn't stopped speculators from trading millions of dollars in volumes.

The hot ball of money chasing meme coins from Solana to Base networks has found its way to Degen Chain, a so-termed layer-3 blockchain built on top of Base that began operations last Thursday.

The four-day-old network has recorded nearly $100 million in transactional volumes in the past 24 hours alone over 272,00 unique transactions, data show. On-chain analysts say over 7,500 contracts and 2,300 tokens have been floated on the network since Thursday—albeit mostly rug pulls or scams.

Since its launch, it:- on boarded >132k addresses- had over 4.15m completed txs- had 7.5k total contracts deployed (mostly rugs, only 290 verified)- had over 2300 tokens launched (mostly rugs)

— Shual (@0xShual) March 31, 2024

The biggest token by capitalization is that of Degen Swap (DSWAP), an exchange built on Degen Chain, which was valued at just over $14 million as of Monday morning. Non-serious token Degen Pepe (DPEPE) has a higher valuation at $23 million, but is a meme coin with no use beyond speculation.

Scores of tokens have a market capitalization of under $1 million, and are mainly serving as speculative bets.

The network had no supported stablecoins as of Monday, and users can transact or trade only with the native DEGEN tokens. DEGEN changed hands at 6 cents as of European morning hours, up more than 500% from Thursday’s 1 cent levels, data shows.

What is a Layer 3?

Degen Chain is a layer 3 network built specifically for the DEGEN token. A relatively new development, a layer-3 blockchain is a customizable and application-specific blockchain built on top of layer-2 protocols. Layer 2s are networks built on a layer-1 blockchain such as Ethereum or Solana that can settle transactions faster and more cheaply than the underlying system.

The general idea behind a layer-3 network is to have a blockchain that can quickly and verifiably complete a very specific set of tasks. These tasks can range from payments to gaming transactions, and a layer-3 network will handle only those specific types of transactions.

The DEGEN token will be used as the native gas, or fee payment, token of the chain. Its developers say the chain enables new experiments with tipping, community rewards, payments, gaming and more.

Bitcoin Layer 2 project Bitlayer announced the initiation of the Ready Player One program in anticipation of the forthcoming mainnet launch. This marks the first initiative in a series of ecosystem incentive programs called “Ready Player,” aimed at supporting ecosystem projects operating on the Bitlayer main network.

According to the announcement, teams that register and engage in building the Bitlayer ecosystem will be rewarded with tokens corresponding to their contributions to the ecosystem. The total value of rewards for the first phase of the event surpasses $50 million. Registration for Ready Player One will commence today and remain open until April 29th.

#Bitlayer Presents Ready Player One Ecosystem Incentive Program:$50,000,000 in Rewards for Early Builders & Contributors!Join us in shaping the future of #Bitcoin.Register now: https://t.co/7FzDTaYgEaKnow more: https://t.co/eyaoG6k3DR

— Bitlayer (@BitlayerLabs) March 29, 2024

Ready Player One encourages project teams to explore effective ways to utilize token rewards to achieve broader user adoption, in collaboration with Bitlayer team. Apart from incentivizing developers, Bitlayer will offer builders potential investment opportunities, liquidity support, compensation for product development resources, among other benefits.

The program primarily targets projects operating within domains including DeFi, Infrastructure, NFTs, Decentralized Identity and Privacy, GameFi, and SocialFi.

Bitlayer Raises $5M in Seed Funding to Facilitate Mainnet Launch And Support Ready Player One 

Bitlayer operates as a Layer 2 protocol based on BitVM paradigm, ensuring Bitcoin-equivalent security and Turing-completeness. The project focuses on trustless entry and exit of assets from Layer 1, state transitions facilitated by a Turing-complete Layer 2 virtual machine, and verification of Layer 2 state transitions’ validity by Layer 1.

It introduces enhanced scalability to the Bitcoin ecosystem, providing users with rapid transaction processing alongside Layer 1 verification, secure asset bridging, compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), and state transitions. 

Recently, Bitlayer concluded a seed funding round raising $5 million, which was led by Framework Ventures and ABCDE Capital, along with other contributors and angel investors. The funding will be utilized to facilitate the launch of the mainnet, scheduled for April 5th and provide support for the Ready Player One program.  

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