On the eve of the Cancun upgrade, will Metis be the biggest dark horse in this round of narrative?

Metis, which has surged 5 times in 3 months, has undoubtedly firmly caught the public's attention on the eve of the Cancun upgrade. So, what is driving Metis behind this? develop?

This article brings you a comprehensive analysis of Metis’ progress in terms of technology, ecological development flywheel, decentralized sorter, etc., and is committed to letting readers understand Metis’s progress. Ecology has a clearer understanding.

Introduction to Hybrid Rollups

< p style="text-align: left;">MetisDAO is a Layer 2 expansion solution compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Like other Layer 2 solutions, L2 transactions are packaged and sent to L1 network, taking the pressure off the Ethereum blockchain.

But unlike other L2s, Metis uses innovative Hybrid Rollups technology, combining two mainstream blockchain expansion solutions: Optimistic Rollup (OP Rollup) and Zero-Knowledge Proofs Rollup (ZKPs Rollup).

OP Rollup handles potentially dishonest transactions through its fraud proof mechanism, while ZKPs provide a more secure verification method, ensuring only valid transactions be confirmed. Therefore, Metis’ Hybrid Rollup effectively reduces the risk of fraud and erroneous transactions.

Metis's Hybrid Rollup makes Metis both efficient and safe when processing a large number of transactions, and the scalability of the entire system will not be limited, any EVM-compatible All DAPPs can be seamlessly connected to Metis. In this way, Metis not only provides users with an efficient and secure trading environment, but also provides a convenient access platform for DAPP developers.

In the implementation of Hybrid Rollup, Metis incubated the zkMIPS project to help the implementation of Hybrid Rollup: ZKM, ZKM implements zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) security for all virtual machines (VMs) and applications from the CPU level, and supports multiple A blockchain smart contract engine that allows developers to simply apply ZKP for development.

ZKM can verify all blockchain and non-blockchain transactions, and can also reduce gas fees and shorten withdrawal waiting times. The proposal of ZKM is a relatively new solution for Metis. One of the technical advantages compared to other L2.

In addition to its Hybrid Rollup technology, the most eye-catching development direction of Metis in this round is its upcoming decentralized sorter.

Decentralized sorter

The sorter is the role in L2 responsible for sorting, sorting, packaging and submitting transactions to the L1 network. Currently, most L2 projects (including Optimism, Arbitrum) are Relying on a single sequencer to complete the above work leads to three possible risks:

1) Single point of failure. If the sequencer has problems due to attacks or technical failures, the entire network will be shut down;

2) Scalability issues. A single sorter may be unable to cope with the increasing transaction volume;

3) The ability to resist censorship is low.

In addition to the above problems, the centralized sorter also allows the community and on-chain users to become passive participants in the network and cannot share sorting with the public chain. equipment income.

In order to solve the above problems, MetisDAO plans to launch a decentralized sequencer pool (Sequencer Pool) to solve the risks related to centralized sequencers and increase the network scalability to build a sustainable and community-centric unique Layer 2.

Advantages brought by Metis’ implementation of decentralized sorter:

1) In the decentralized sorter pool, multiple sorters work together. Any sorter that enters through staking has the right to see the contents of the transaction pool and has the right to Process transactions so that a single sequencer cannot be maliciously manipulated; this not only improves the speed of transaction processing, but also increases the fault tolerance of the network (even if there is a problem with one sequencer, the network can still operate normally);

2) Users can become new sorter nodes by staking the native token METIS, while allowing network participants to supervise the sorter nodes, improving the transparency and credibility of the entire system;< /p>

3) From the perspective of community sustainable development, node staking also helps reduce the supply of METIS in circulation, which may have a positive impact on the long-term value of the token. ;

4) The launch of the sequencer pool also means that liquidity staking/re-staking will be introduced into the Metis ecosystem. Liquidity staking has become a One of the most important components in the Defi field, occupying the largest TVL pie in Defi, the introduction of liquid staking into the Metis ecosystem can bring more possibilities and $Metis use cases to its ecosystem.

As shown in the figure above, Metis's Sequencer transaction process:

1. Start: the user starts trading;

2. Sequencer node: The transaction is forwarded to the sequencer node of the network;

3. Block generation: Sequencer receives transactions and creates blocks when transactions are valid;

4. Finalization: Multi-party computation (MPC) nodes merge these blocks and forward them to the Ethereum main chain.

In order to encourage community participation, Metis also provides staking rewards for sorter nodes. That is, in addition to Gas income (the main income of current sorting), these nodes You can also get additional METIS rewards.

This design will encourage more members to participate in the staking of sorter nodes. On the one hand, it ensures that power will not be overly concentrated, and at the same time, it also strengthens decentralization. The concept of centralization.

Before the decentralized sorter is officially launched, Metis will conduct 3 phases of community testing. Currently, the Metis sorter pool has conducted 2 rounds Community testing, the first round started from 1.3 and lasted for 27 days; nearly 200,000 users participated in the first round of testing, resulting in 4 million on-chain transactions;

The second round of test participants exceeded 300,000 users, and the network executed more than 11 million on-chain transactions. Friends who missed the first two rounds of testing can pay more attention to the release time of the third round of community testing and participate in the third round of testing in time.

Ecological Incentive Flywheel

< p style="text-align: left;">On December 18 last year, Metis officially launched the MetisEDF (Metis Ecosystem Fund (EDF)) development plan, aiming to allocate 4.6 million METIS to further promote the development and innovation of the Metis system. .

Based on the current price of Metis of $106, the ecological fund is nearly 500 million US dollars, which is the largest ecological incentive fund among all L1/L2 in the past two years.

The allocation of the fund is as follows:

• < p style="text-align: left;">Sequencer mining: 65.4% (three million $METIS, this part of the funds is used to incentivize the mining revenue of the sequencer node and promote community participation)

• Ecosystem funding: 34.6% (1.6 million $METIS, this part of the funds is used for project development, protocol deployment, liquidity Provide, incentives for users, etc. various measures that contribute to ecological development)

On February 8, Metis official Announced the launch of the Liquid Stake Blitz program, which aims to leverage the MetisEDF Ecosystem Development Fund totaling up to 4.6 million METIS to accelerate the growth of the LSD protocol and LSD-focused products on the Metis network.

According to the Liquid Stake Blitz plan, from February 8 to the end of February, the LSD protocol of the Metis ecosystem will be able to initiate proposals within the Metis community governance system, and The formal voting process will begin in March.

After the voting ends, a limited number of winning protocols can win the right to pair with the decentralized sorter node (i.e., a whitelist seat), thereby obtaining a stable node You are eligible to participate and receive 20% of the MRR (Mining Reward Rate) mining incentive in the first year.

What we need to note is that the development of the LSD protocol in the Metis ecosystem is very helpful in lowering the staking threshold on the network.

Unlike the LSD protocol on Ethereum, which lowers the threshold for POS node staking, Metis ecology's pledge protocols such as ENKI lower the threshold for sequencer node staking.

This gives ordinary users more revenue opportunities:

1) At least 20% of the guaranteed mining income provided by the ecological fund;

2) The corresponding airdrop reward of LSD future tokens;

3) Increase the demand for METIS, enabling the METIS ecosystem to achieve a flywheel effect of positive development.

Take Enki as an example. The protocol has launched a genesis airdrop program called Fantasy in early February, which will airdrop 1 million ENKI to community users ( 10% of the supply) as a reward;

In addition, Enki also announced that the team will not retain any tokens, and other ENKI tokens accounting for 90% of the total supply The coins will be released in various forms over time, which means that Enki users can continue to obtain ENKI benefits by re-staking eMETIS into seMETIS, or through various protocol interaction activities such as LP pairing of METIS/eMETIS. .

Friends who want to participate can use our Biteye exclusive invitation:
https://www.web3davincis.com/journeys/projects/enki?ref=0spK8VoR

For large financial entities, they can pledge 20k-100k Metis tokens to become a sorter node.

For individual users, they can pledge Metis to different LSD platforms to obtain corresponding node benefits. At the same time, the pledge certificate can also be carried out in the ecosystem. circulation and use.

The pioneer of decentralized sorters, the emergence of the revenue sharing model, and the development of LSD all make $METIS fundamentally different from other L2 tokens .

For other L2 native tokens, they only have governance functions and cannot share income for holders.

Therefore, we can see that when Metis is empowered to earn income, more people are willing to join in and become nodes, driving more tokens to be pledged, and more This further promotes the shortage of Metis token supply and drives further price growth.

And price growth attracts more participants, making the ecosystem more prosperous. The prosperity of the ecology makes the incentives of the sequencer nodes stronger, and more people participate in staking. The entire development process gradually forms a positive flywheel.

Ecological development status and key projects

The current TVL of Metis is $82.82M. From the above-mentioned changes in Metis TVL since 2023, we can see that since Metis launched the design of the decentralized sorter in 2024, the TVL on the chain has grown significantly, proving that the community and The market is optimistic about this direction.

The current key projects of the Metis ecosystem are as follows:

1. ENKI: The first LSD project on the Metis ecosystem, aiming to simplify and democratize participation in the Metis sequencer node ecosystem. It enables ordinary investors to obtain rewards by staking Metis Sequencer nodes. It is currently in the test network and has not yet been officially launched;

2. Hera Finance: an AI Powered DEX aggregator to help users find the best trading prices.

4. Ethena: The recently popular stablecoin protocol on Ethereum aims to provide the crypto world with a censorship-resistant, scalable cryptocurrency native through USDe. solution. 2.28 Announced cooperation with the Metis ecosystem.

5. Aave: Currently the largest TVL agreement on Metis and the largest lending agreement in the entire chain.

6. Hermes Protocol: A DEX that allows users to trade without slippage.

7. Net Swap: The first DEX in the Metis ecosystem, allowing users to conduct fast and low-cost token transactions on the Metis network.

8. Tethys Finance: The first perpetual trading protocol in the Metis ecosystem, allowing users to trade major tokens and METIS with up to 50 times leverage

9. Stargate: an asset cross-chain bridge, developed by LayerZero Labs, a cross-chain interoperability protocol standard. Through Stargate, users and Dapps can cross multiple chains. Chain transfer assets.

10. Artemis Finance: a liquidity staking protocol specially designed for the Metis decentralized sorter pool, and also two LSDs officially announced by Metis to cooperate. one of them. Users can stake their $METIS tokens on Artemis and receive liquid tokens $artMETIS, automatically accumulating profits while using $artMETIS to interact on the Metis chain.

11. WAGMI: A comprehensive Defi solution, its liquidity pool can automatically rebalance and dynamically allocate funds to maximize user profits when trading. change. It received a 2 million Grant from the Metis Ecological Fund and announced its cooperation with DWF.

Metis ecological incentives have just been launched, which also means that there are alpha opportunities and are worth keeping an eye on.

Summary

As the first Ethereum Rollup to adopt a decentralized sorter, Metis provides users and DAPP developers with its unique Hybrid Rollups technology and upcoming decentralized sorter. An efficient, secure trading environment and convenient access platform.

With the continuous growth of the Metis ecosystem, the advancement of multiple key projects and the official launch of the subsequent decentralized sorter, the positive incentives of its ecological fund Next, we have reason to believe that the Metis ecosystem is expected to occupy a place in the L2 competition and bring more value and opportunities to users and developers.