Recently, public chains represented by BSC, Solana, and Fontom have launched fierce challenges to Ethereum, especially in terms of application ecology. IDO, airdrops, etc. have attracted the attention and use of a large number of users.

However, Ethereum is still favored by the encryption market, which is directly reflected in the recent continuous surge of ETH.The moat of Ethereum lies in the high degree of decentralization and security of its network, as well as in the richness and innovation of its ecology, creating a relatively complete experience environment for both developers and users.

This article will focus on the lesser-known alternative ecological projects of Ethereum. They do not belong to traditional tracks such as transactions, loans, games, NFTs, and expansion. They are even difficult to classify according to traditional classification methods, but many of them have the potential to become Ethereum. The important infrastructure of Fang Ecology has become a middleware-like existence and meets the subdivision needs of different user groups, such as obtaining information notifications on the chain and automatically adding margins for loan products.

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01 EPNS

EPNS is an Ethereum information push service protocol that enables user wallets to receive DApp notifications, with the goal of becoming a communication layer middleware in the blockchain network. At present, the project has received millions of dollars in financing from Binance Labs, IOSG, former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, and Gitcoin co-founder Scott Moore.

At present, Ethereum users can only get asset transfer-out/transfer-in notifications through the wallet APP, but not more complex types of DApp information notifications, such as notifications of a sharp drop in Gas fees, notifications of important on-chain governance voting, and notifications of winning lottery DApps , Liquidation warnings of lending DApps, etc., many of which are time-sensitive, but users can only obtain such information through active inquiries or news reports, which will undoubtedly have a bad impact on user experience.

EPNS aims to solve this problem. By cooperating with DeFi protocols and building necessary communication middleware APIs and SDKs, protocol developers can send messages to service subscribers according to their wallet addresses, so that these users can obtain the fastest Important on-chain notifications to maximize self-interest.

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02 Gelato Network

Gelato Network is an Ethereum smart contract auto-execution tool that allows developers/bots to automatically execute transactions based on user-preset conditions without running any underlying server infrastructure.

For example, the project can help users implement transactions at a specific price, transfer tokens at a specific time, etc., and automatically transfer funds when MakerDAO positions are about to be liquidated, and automatically stop losses when the impermanent loss of Uniswap LP exceeds a certain range.

It is understood that the first product launched by Gelato Network is Sorbet Finance, which is an order-thin DEX based on Uniswap, which supports users to set target prices and execute buy/sell orders when the Uniswap market price reaches the target price. The transaction requires an additional fee of nearly a hundred dollars.

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03 Swarm

Swarm is a storage and communication system officially launched by Ethereum, which aims to provide decentralized and redundant storage for DApp code, user data, blockchain and state data, as well as provide an underlying structure for untraceable communication and built-in incentives The system is implemented through smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain.

Ethereum developers can complete the decentralized storage of data through Swarm, instead of directly relying on external ecosystems such as IPFS and Filecoin. Compared with Filecoin, the biggest difference between the two is the technical details and incentive mechanism.Filecoin does not punish storage, while Swarm punishes storage. The former leads to the flood of garbage content because there is no storage penalty mechanism, while the latter improves file availability and security through storage penalties.

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04 Tornado.cash

Tornado.cash is an Ethereum privacy trading tool that can improve the privacy of user addresses and assets, making up for the shortcomings of Ethereum's lack of privacy functions.Since all transaction records and address balances of Ethereum are public, it is easy for the outside world to obtain private information such as asset balances and transfer records of a specific individual through the associated transaction transfer records.

Through Tornado.cash, users can use their own addresses to transfer assets to the product's smart contract address, mix them with other users' assets, and then another address can withdraw the money, based on zero-knowledge proof, other One cannot judge who the parties to the transaction are. Moreover, there is no custody in this process, and users can always control their assets.

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05 ENS

ENS is an Ethereum domain name service project that aims to provide users with short and easy-to-read domain names. ENS can assign a human-readable domain name ending in ". Address resources make it easier for users to remember and use.

For example, V God can register through ENS and associate "vitalik.eth" with his Ethereum address, so that his friends can use vitalik.eth as the target address to send him Ethereum assets, reducing the possibility of entering the wrong address.

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06 InstaDApp

InstaDApp is a DeFi aggregation protocol. Its main feature is to use smart wallets and bridging protocols to integrate major DeFi protocols. Users need to mobilize MateMask on the website to register smart wallets and transfer funds to use them. All user wallets are controlled by Instadapp. The contract is under unified control, and users do not own private keys and mnemonic words.

At present, the DeFi protocols integrated by InstaDApp include Maker, Aave, Compound, and Uniswap. Users can trade their encrypted assets on this platform and manage their trading pairs in Uniswap.

Due to the use of smart wallets, InstaDApp also provides users with one-click withdrawal of all collateral, collateral swap, debt swap, automatic debt refinancing and other functions, and also supports users to migrate collateral between protocols.

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07 Kleros

Kleros is an Ethereum-based decentralized arbitration protocol that provides arbitration for subjective conflicts that cannot be resolved by smart contracts. After the DApp following the project's smart contract standard initiates the arbitration, the protocol randomly selects a group of jurors for each dispute and asks them to vote based on the evidence materials submitted by the parties to ensure the correct ruling.

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08 Mask Network 

Mask Network is a Web3 privacy tool built on the Ethereum ecosystem. Its goal is to become a portal to help users transition from Web2.0 to Web3.0. The project tries to develop tools on the platforms of traditional social giants such as Twitter and Facebook, and supports Users seamlessly send encrypted messages, cryptocurrencies and even build decentralized applications.

At present, Mask Network has developed a series of tools on the Twitter platform, so that Twitter users who install its plug-ins can directly purchase cryptocurrencies on DEX, donate to Gitcoin, etc. without jumping to the page, reducing the traditional social platform's entry into the encrypted world. threshold.

The above are just some of the alternative projects in the Ethereum ecosystem. They help Ethereum greatly optimize user experience, reduce usage costs and thresholds, and at the same time improve the privacy, fairness, and timeliness of behavior on the chain, and accelerate the arrival of the Web 3.0 era.