From OpenSea, MetaMask to Uniswap, what other "monopolists" in the industry are you unaware of?

Original Title: "From OpenSea, MetaMask to Deribit, what other 'monopolists' in the crypto industry do you not know about?"

Source: Wu Says Real

Recently, Ethereum developer @0xTomoyo listed the platforms he considers to be nearly "monopolistic" in the current cryptocurrency industry. This article expands on that idea and attempts to outline the current monopoly rankings in the cryptocurrency industry.

The accuracy of the definition of "monopoly" is also questionable, especially in the rapidly changing and innovative cryptocurrency industry. A more appropriate term might be "temporarily having an absolute leading market share in a certain field."

OpenSea

Sector: NFT Trading Market

Monopoly Index: 90%

We can roughly divide OpenSea's monopolistic era into two phases:

• Pre-OpenSea Monopoly Era: Competitors include trading markets like SuperRare, Rarible, and Foundation. During this phase, OpenSea held an absolute monopoly, with market share rapidly increasing from 40% to 98%.
• Watershed: Events like the OpenSea IPO controversy and NFT asset losses gradually decreased user sentiment towards OpenSea, and the market craved challengers that could threaten OpenSea.

Now, with OpenSea's transaction volume reaching new heights (surpassing $6 billion), early competitors like Rarible no longer pose a threat.

Although grassroots platforms like LookRare and X2Y2 have emerged, even surpassing OpenSea in transaction volume at times, they essentially rely on transaction mining, leaning towards token economics. Nevertheless, in this post-OpenSea monopoly era, many legitimate players have entered the market, such as Coinbase's NFT market and FTX's NFT market. As the multi-chain trend matures, OpenSea may miss out on NFT trading market share outside of Ethereum, as Magic Eden has already become the largest NFT market on the Solana network, despite its transaction volume still being far less than OpenSea's, the number of transactions can sometimes be two to three times that of OpenSea.

Uniswap

Sector: ETH AMM DEX

Monopoly Index: 80%

According to data from Dune Analytics, Uniswap currently holds a market share of up to 80% on Ethereum and other chains based on transaction volume. In the stablecoin AMM sub-sector, even amidst the peak of the Curve War, after the new fee options (like 0.01%) were implemented, Uniswap's market share approached 90%.

While there is currently no technical monopoly in AMM, with various micro-innovations emerging, Uniswap Labs' continuous innovation in the DEX field (such as the creation of AMM and concentrated liquidity) may be key to maintaining its market share.

However, it should be noted that Uniswap has not entered other public chains like BSC and Solana, so if we expand our view to all public chain DEXs, its overall monopoly level would be lower.

MetaMask

Sector: Browser Plugin Wallet

Monopoly Index: 85%

In the Ethereum ecosystem and all EVM-compatible ecosystems, the MetaMask plugin wallet has achieved a near crushing monopoly due to its first-mover advantage; however, in markets outside of EVM, MetaMask has not yet launched an offensive. It remains to be seen if new products in this sector can quickly capture some market share by leveraging certain new trends.

Currently, there are many distinctive new plugin wallets in the market, such as Coinbase Wallet, Coin98 Wallet, Rabby, MaiZi Wallet plugin, TP plugin wallet, XDEFI, and Liquality. Areas where MetaMask does not have a monopoly include: in the Chinese market, TP wallet has a greater influence; and in non-EVM public chains like Solana, there are their own wallets.

WBTC

Sector: Bitcoin Pegged Token

Monopoly Index: 80%

WBTC is a Bitcoin pegged token jointly launched by BitGo, Kyber Network, and Republic protocol, officially launched in January 2019. It is the first ERC20 version token of Bitcoin and currently the most supplied Bitcoin pegged token on Ethereum, with a market share of up to 81%. Other Bitcoin pegged tokens on Ethereum include hBTC, renBTC, sBTC, imBTC, tBTC, and pBTC.

Lido

Sector: Ethereum 2.0 Staking Sector

Monopoly Index: 85%

Lido is a staking service platform for Ethereum 2.0, allowing users to stake any amount of ETH and receive staking tokens stETH on a 1:1 basis to participate in other DeFi market services. There are other players in the Ethereum 2.0 staking sector, such as Ankr, StakeHound, SharedStake, Stakewise, StaFi, and Rocketpool, but currently, Lido nearly monopolizes this sector, with a market share of up to 85%.

Deribit

Sector: Centralized Options Trading Platform

Monopoly Index: 90%

Deribit is a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange and currently the largest Bitcoin options trading platform in the world. According to data from The Block, Deribit accounts for up to 87% of the total open interest in Bitcoin options in the current market; in the total open interest of Ethereum options, it accounts for 96%.

Flashbots

Sector: MEV

Monopoly Index: 95%

Note: Miner Extractable Value (MEV) is a measure of the profits miners can gain from their ability to include, exclude, or reorder transactions within the blocks they produce.

Flashbots is a research and development organization established to alleviate the network congestion caused by MEV on Ethereum (i.e., increased burden on peer-to-peer networks), chain congestion (i.e., tight block space), and the potential threats to Ethereum's consensus security.

Although there are other players in the MEV sector, such as Eden Network and KeeperDAO, they are generally not on the same scale as Flashbots.

Chainlink

Sector: Oracles

Monopoly Index: 90%

Despite many new entrants in the oracle sector, such as API3, Band, NEST, DOS, and Tellor, the vast majority of DeFi projects still use Chainlink's price feed services. After all, the authenticity and stability of data feeds directly impact the survival of DeFi projects, making the choice of leading services the safest approach. However, many DeFi projects are also compatible with Uniswap's TWAP (Time Weighted Average Price) oracle service.

Gnosis Safe

Sector: Asset Multi-Signature Management

Monopoly Index: 99%

Gnosis Safe is a multi-signature wallet that many DeFi protocols and DAOs use to manage their funds. Currently, there seems to be no other well-known product competing in the asset multi-signature management sector.

Tornado Cash

Sector: Mixing Protocol

Monopoly Index: 95%

Tornado Cash is the largest decentralized mixing protocol on Ethereum. The mixing protocol sector also has new entrants like Onion Mixer and Miximus, but currently, they are not on the same scale as Tornado Cash.

Chainalysis

Sector: On-chain Data Analysis, On-chain Security

Monopoly Index: 90%

Founded in 2014, Chainalysis primarily provides Bitcoin transaction analysis software for cryptocurrency exchanges, international law enforcement agencies, and other clients, helping them comply with regulatory requirements, assess risks, and identify illegal activities, aiming to bridge the gap between digital currencies and traditional banks. Therefore, Chainalysis is quite different from common smart contract security audit firms, leaning more towards compliance review and security collaboration.

Bitmain

Sector: Bitcoin Mining Machines

Monopoly Index: 70%

Bitmain is currently the largest manufacturer of Bitcoin mining machines in the world. In 2021, Bitmain's sales amounted to approximately $5-10 billion, capturing over 70% of the Bitcoin mining machine market. Other players in this sector include Canaan Creative and MicroBT. However, Bitmain's monopoly is facing significant adjustments, as the rise of MicroBT in 2018 led to a sharp decline in its market share, and Intel's recent efforts may also bring impact.