THORChain & Phaver/Lens Battle For Crypto Project of the Year

After weeks of debates, interviews, and community votes, Coinage and our sea of more than 6,500 NFT holders are ready to finally crown our Crypto Project of the Year.

More than 2,000 votes were cast to whittle down the 16 top projects that were nominated in our series to spotlight the most promising projects in crypto.

In our final, THORChain Tech Lead Chad Barraford refused to hold back in a back-and-forth interview with Joonatan Lintala, the CEO of decentralized social app Phaver. Barraford explained that THORChain is deserving of the title because of its explosion as a leading decentralized exchange now being tapped by wallet providers like Trust wallet and others to enable permissionless swaps.

"We've just done such an excellent job, and we've just put so much time and energy into this thing. We just deserve it," Barraford said, adding that THORChain's volume has exploded over the year. "Trade volume is about 20-times higher today than it was the week of when the we're at the top of the bull [market.]"

THORChain's native token, RUNE, had more than trippled in price off those metrics to wrap up 2023. It has since retreated by about 20% to start the year.

On the other hand, Lintala explained that Phaver has come to dominate the field of apps seeking to create community online for Web3 token holders. The app, which also enables the ability for users to post to Lens Protocol, has attracted more than $100 million in total NFT value connected to the app to establish a center of Web3 users.

"As far as we can tell, we are kind of the biggest Web3 social app right now out there based on activity, and hopefully we'll only be going up from here," Lintala said, noting the platform accounts for the majority of activity on Lens and continues to attract holders from leading NFT communities like Coinage and Pudgy Penguins. "The first $100 million is always the hardest so hopefully reaching $1 billion of connected value from here is going to be much faster."

More than 1,300 Coinage NFT holders have already connected their NFTs to Phaver to begin earning rewards or "cred points" on the social network, which should be important ahead of Phaver's upcoming token drop. Lintala previously hinted at a drop later this year, and after Elon Musk's X announced it would discontinue support to display NFTs onchain, Phaver has offered a healthy alternative option.

"What we're actually seeing is that one of the biggest things that blockchain can bring into social [media] is actually the credibility and verifiability of people," Lintala said. "And that's something that like clearly Elon and nobody else has been really figuring out at scale."

Watch the full showdown between THORChain and Lens above with a Coinage NFT. Don't have a Coinage NFT? Mint one now!

Coinage NFT holders can also vote for our final winner on Snapshot.