Skip to main content<br>The encyclopedia of onchain products<br>Every onchain mechanism ever built, reconstructed from primary sources and explained mechanically, the goal is to help you understand the full history of onchain products, but more importantly, to inspire you to build the next onchain unicorn.<br>SearchCreate<br>Search experimentsGo<br>Type at least two characters to search.<br>Any eraAny outcomeAny mechanism

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Onchain Unicorns · all-time fees<br>Cumulative fees paid through each protocol’s contracts · DefiLlama, 2026-07-28<br>1Uniswap (AMM)$5.70B<br>2Lido (Liquid staking)$3.27B<br>3Aave (Lending pool)$2.24B<br>4Pump.fun (Bonding curve)$1.89B<br>5Jito (MEV capture)$1.77B<br>6PancakeSwap (AMM)$1.76B<br>7Hyperliquid (Onchain order book)$1.45B<br>8Meteora (AMM)$1.45B<br>9Raydium (AMM)$1.43B<br>10Sky (MakerDAO) (CDP vaults)$1.20B<br>Who’s nextJupiter $1.08B · Ethena $1.01B · Polymarket $155M TTM · Morpho $223M TTM · Aerodrome $527M

2011 · 1<br>Namecoin<br>The first fork of Bitcoin (April 2011): a merged-mined blockchain key/value store for censorship-resistant .bit domains and identities that proved decentralized naming was possible — and that squatters, not users, would fill it.<br>technically successful commercially unsuccessful

2013 · 2<br>Colored Coins (Open Assets Protocol)<br>Bitcoin-native token scheme that 'colored' satoshis via OP_RETURN marker outputs to represent stocks, bonds, and real-world assets — the conceptual ancestor of tokens and NFTs, ultimately displaced by Ethereum's ERC-20.<br>technically successful commercially unsuccessful<br>Mastercoin / Omni Layer<br>The first ICO in crypto history — a 2013 crowdsale funding a metaprotocol layered on Bitcoin that later became the original home of Tether (USDT).<br>technically successful commercially unsuccessful

2014 · 5<br>BitShares<br>Dan Larimer's 2014 Graphene-era 'decentralized autonomous company' that pioneered DPoS consensus, an on-chain order-book DEX, and bitUSD — the first crypto-collateralized stablecoin — years before DeFi, but whose stablecoins broke in the 2018 bear market.<br>technically successful commercially unsuccessful<br>Counterparty<br>A 2014 meta-protocol that embedded token issuance, a native DEX, and betting into Bitcoin transactions, bootstrapped its XCP token by provably burning ~2,125 BTC, and incubated the first NFT ecosystems (Spells of Genesis, Rare Pepes) years before Ethereum's ERC standards.<br>technically successful commercially unsuccessful<br>NuBits<br>An early dual-token seigniorage stablecoin (NuBits/NuShares) that held a $1 peg via custodian sales, interest-bearing 'parking,' and voter governance — until it collapsed twice, in 2016 and 2018, when reserves ran out.<br>failed

Browse all 5 experiments from 2014

2015 · 4<br>Etheria<br>A 2015 hexagonal-tile virtual world on Ethereum — widely regarded as the first true NFT project — that sat unsold for five years before selling out in the March 2021 NFT boom.<br>partial success<br>Plantoids<br>Blockchain-based 'artificial lifeform' sculptures that collect cryptocurrency from human 'pollinators' and use smart contracts to commission artists to build their own offspring — an artistic proof-of-concept for autonomous, self-reproducing DAOs.<br>ongoing<br>Lighthouse<br>A serverless, peer-to-peer Bitcoin crowdfunding app that used SIGHASH_ANYONECANPAY-based "assurance contracts" so pledges were only claimable once a funding goal was met, cutting out platforms and escrow entirely.<br>abandoned

Browse all 4 experiments from 2015

2016 · 13<br>The DAO<br>The first large-scale onchain venture-capital DAO on Ethereum, which raised ~$150M in 2016 and was drained by a reentrancy exploit, triggering the hard fork that split Ethereum from Ethereum Classic.<br>exploited<br>Rare Pepes / Pepe Cash<br>Community-curated Pepe the Frog trading cards issued as Counterparty tokens on Bitcoin from 2016, with PEPECASH as the scene's native currency — widely considered the birth of crypto art and a direct ancestor of NFTs.<br>partial success<br>EtherDelta<br>The first widely used Ethereum DEX, pairing an off-chain order book with on-chain signature-verified settlement, which collapsed under a DNS hack, a change in ownership, and the rise of AMMs like Uniswap.<br>failed

Browse all 13 experiments from 2016

2017 · 19<br>CryptoPunks<br>10,000 algorithmically generated 24x24-pixel characters given away free on Ethereum in June 2017 with a built-in escrow marketplace, predating and directly inspiring the ERC-721 NFT standard.<br>major success<br>CryptoKitties<br>The first mainstream ERC-721 game, letting users collect, breed, and auction unique on-chain cats — and the demand shock that congested Ethereum in December 2017.<br>major success<br>MakerDAO / DAI<br>The first widely adopted decentralized, crypto-collateralized stablecoin, minted against on-chain collateral via overcollateralized debt positions and governed by MKR holders.<br>major success

Browse all 19 experiments from 2017

2018 · 23<br>Uniswap<br>The first widely adopted constant-product automated market maker,...