This is my own personal list, not affiliated with any projects listed or any affiliation to my jobs or any work within this space. Not a shill, just a moment of reflection.

TokenProof

If you went to an event in 2022, chances are you used TokenProof. Being able to physically confirm ownership without having to carry wallet that has the assets in them is HUGE move forward.. Including this at the top, after forgetting it for a moment because this is BIG and look forward to more innovation like this..

Nouns Ai Tooling

Midjourney, ChatGPT and all the Ai* (Machine Learning) tools that came out this past year and have seen insane adoption would be first on this list if they were web3-specific..

NOUNS creating their own version at playground.nounsai.wtf is here and worth highlighting and mentioning.. I’ve watched Midjourney’s Discord grow almost 1 million users in 1 week (during the holiday season, this past week) so understand the importance of having a fun tool and the engagement it gets..

Protip: Create a tool people love and use, that generates UCG and make it part of your Discord.

SVS Dashboard

One of the things Sneaky Vampire Syndicate did very well (besides being a first mover of gas-conscious minting during 2021 hype) was their Dashboard. The polygon blood accumulation and using it to purchase items, enter raffles, get pixel vamps or champagne is awesome.

But one of my favorite aspects is the Badges..

Role Icons are a hugely underrated feature in Discord and under utilized by many projects. Earning Badges is a huge gamification product, it’s big part of Roblox and Minecraft’s ecosystem as well as COD and other games.. XBOX calls them achievement badges.. etc. etc.

Utilizing Role Icons is one thing every project should do. But allowing users to EARN them through gamification and be able to personally select which one they want to wear in the Discord is next-level.

WAGDIE: Proof of Lore

We’re All Going to DIE (WAGDIE) was a free-mint during the bear market that got a lot of attention for hosting a theatrical space and burning a Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) when apes were 21e and ETH was def. above 2,000. But the project has done a lot of other things since and not many are even aware or care, but that’s OK..

This is about features we love, not numbers go up and even the MAYC falls under the category of Proof of Lore, it wasn’t just a randomized event, it follows this pattern:

Proof of Lore is an abstract concept, coined by the WAGDIE community. But the gamification of participating in events, earning tokens that then can be seared to make meta-data changes to the character. Or utilizing Location-Staking from their website Dashboard to enter events, track history of movement of characters etc.. It’s all leaving fingerprints on the blockchain of history and lore in EACH character, bringing them to life..

The custom website with the ability to change characters names and bios, have them updated live on OS, definitely is a cool feature that opens the doors of possibility on ways we can utilize this technology.

Valhalla ReRoll Armory

Yes, sure other projects within the space did this first.. Even WAGDIE had metadata changes happening on the blockchain through actions etc.. BUT no one built out an Armory like Valhalla with seasonal item drops (akin to Fortnite and other games) and the project is still new.. Armory has only had one “season” or period thus far.. Tons of potential there..

As an FYI I spent over 20 Armory Tokens chasing after hair and clothes traits.. It’s addicting and there is only a finite supply of the tokens and each one is burned when re-rolling.

Studio.Manifold.xyz

2022 web3 users have no idea how spoiled they already are by moves forward in this space. In 2021 people were paying developers 30e or so..at minimum.. to deploy contracts on Ethereum.. Today, ANYONE can plug-and-play and deploy their own contracts minting erc721a and erc1155 tokens on the blockchain using Studio.Manifold.xyz and only pay the cost of gas.

Ledger Stax

Premature mention.. We have only seen product design and haven’t tested yet.. But taking the old model of USB-looking device we use to hide porn and converting to a modern iPhone style is HUGE push-forward on self-custody safety, making it accessible and standard for more users.

Farcaster

Web3 Social, with verified checkmark based on NFTs you own as profile picture that ANYONE can get. It’s still pretty early and new, but has a lot of potential. Gaming and Social are going to be HUGE verticals for web3, if not already..

The Beacon

If you want to make a great web3 game…make a great GAME first. Let the market and other aspects follow. Too many projects operating like sleazy kickstarters with promises they can’t deliver and not understanding the failures of past games that were already explored well BEFORE this tech existed.

Not only is this operating on Arbitrum (shoutout to Layer 2s and ZKs, the future of ETH) and priced fairly.. But each player receives a HOUSE with cosmetics as well as in-game cosmetics/skins for their character. Plus Treasure marketplace to trade these things.. LAND should be free in gaming and also if you want people to checkout the game first, there should always be GUEST/FREE-TO-PLAY models.

JoinFire.XYZ

There is multiple reasons why users shouldn’t be getting their assets drained in 2023 moving forward.. A simple solution is having multiple wallets and using burner/degen minting wallets separate from main assets.. BUT.. things like Fire are changing the game by showing users WHAT they are doing when they click wallet signs.

Also their mint process (and I believe its free or super cheap) basically gives a user story on how the product works while finding the FIRE nft by clicking to sign through hidden-images.

I imagine in 2023 Metamask or other wallets will implement their own version of this built in, otherwise we will continue seeing a rise of these add-ons and that’s cool too.

Premint.xyz

This is a 2021 product.. but still worth highlighting as I didn’t do one of these last year

Prior to Premint existing, many of us were using excel and google sheets to exchange allowlists and do collabs, etc.. It was rudimentary and a process that opened up the door for being scammed.. so this is worth mentioning and highlighting.. Plus the added features of ensuring users are following X social and inside X Discord with X role is awesome.

Sense

Another honorable mention.. It’s not super WEB3 tech reliant.. but a quality of life improvement on Discord… and managing being in multiple and trying to keep up.. Sense allows people to opt-in to phone notifications for news highlights so they don’t even have to bother being in a Discord 24/7

Another thing that should be standard.. And may the best aggregates of 2023 win because there’s no way people are keeping up with several project Discords and having a life.

Uniq.cx

Final last honorable mentions/rant/shill. Mr. Mallory built something really cool and I can’t believe it’s free. I’m not a huge trader, more of just an enjoyer and money burner.. but if you want awesome analytics on projects, checkout uniq.cx

He also released an awesome generative project on Tezos (which is the kind of pricing NFTs should be, looking forward to more layer 2/ZKs on ETH in 2023) and that’s my banner images (along with the Vals)..

Price Tracking Apps

Coin Stats added a feature to add customized alerts for NFTs the same way one would do with crypto.. Get notifications on your phone when X moves above/below price or increases by X %

FloorNFT is another iOS/Andorid app that does this..

Integrating and aggregating are HUGE things for this space and I look forward to more of it.. I’ve said it before, but will say it again here.. The future of this space is users using the technology without understanding, without knowing what blockchain they are on or using or caring.. At least on the mass adoption side of things.. And that’s OK… We can still appreciate or care about these things.

Speaking of such things..

Huge S/O to OpenSea and any other markets that are allowing OPTIMISM as well as other blockchain NFTs to show up alongside ETH. This mirror article can be minted for .01 and show-up in a wallet just like any other NFT.

Mirror.xyz is worth giving love to as well.. There are tons of fun ways it can be used.. Here is me writing a story with one of my NFTs as part of a creative contest and then minting it and attaching to OS profile for the character as well as sending to ProofofLore.eth