Our 5 favorite crypto projects - August 2022
Published: 2022-08-02 17:07:34

At [Sort](https://sort.xyz) we comb through a lot of crypto projects, whether it's DeFi, NFTs, or anything else that uses Ethereum. We've decided to start compiling a list of some of the more interesting projects each month. Please feel free to give us feedback in our [discord](https://discord.gg/sort) on how we can improve this list! 

### 1. Farcaster

In the early days of Twitter, there was so much enthusiasm and excitement for Twitter as a protocol, and lots of lots of apps were built on top of it. When Twitter started focusing on their advertising business, they cracked down on app usage, and the many apps built on Twitter died. That's why we're so excited for [Farcaster](https://www.farcaster.xyz/), a permissionless social protocol that is open! Usage on the app is already taking off, and the company behind the protocol [recently raised $30 million](https://dailyhodl.com/2022/07/13/former-coinbase-executive-to-launch-decentralized-social-media-project-after-raising-30000000-from-investors/). Looking for an invite? Follow [@dwr](https://twitter.com/dwr) on Twitter and respond to one of his invite tweets.

### 2. Beanstalk

Not another algo-stablecoin! There have been a lot of these lately, but [Beanstalk](https://bean.money/) will be the one to rule them all. Beanstalk gets "replanted" this week (re-launched) after it suffered a major hack to it's governance protocol. The governance protocol was updated, and there is nothing insecure about the Beanstalk protocol itself. Prior to relaunch the coin went through two large audits by two different firms ([Trail of Bits](https://bean.money/blog/trail-of-bits-audit-of-beanstalk-completed) and [Halborn](https://bean.money/blog/halborn-audit-of-beanstalk-completed)). What really sets Beanstalk apart is its community and it's 0 collateral model. This is a high-risk high-reward project that we believe will be here for a long time. [The Root protocol](https://medium.com/@root_protocol/root-protocol-rent-free-markets-on-beanstalk-6a6b3f71415d) has also [raised $9 million](https://medium.com/@root_protocol/root-protocol-rent-free-markets-on-beanstalk-6a6b3f71415d) to support the new Beanstalk ecosystem.

### 3. Regulars Jobs

We're hoping the [launch of Regulars Jobs](https://twitter.com/monharti/status/1553429859568869382?s=20&t=uOhEp1xlWSLT_j2Z5x_qcw) leads to a decentralized sims future for the project. Regulars jobs launched this past week, mint a job for your Regular and start earning Regular Dollars ($REG). TBD what you can do with the Regular Dollars (buy pets, houses, etc?). It will be interesting to watch the ecosystem emerge around Regulars, maybe even a Regulars Casino?

### 4. Dark Forest

The [Dark Forest](https://zkga.me/) ecosystem is continuing to grow with new plugins like [Night Market](https://blog.zkga.me/nightmarket), which creates a marketplace for planet coordinates. [Dark Forest](https://zkga.me/) is still in the early days and we're excited to watch it continue to progress. If you're unaware of Dark Forest, this description does a great job describing the Ethereum based game: "Dark Forest is a space-conquest game built on Ethereum where players discover and conquer planets in an infinite, procedurally-generated, cryptographically-specified universe. It uses zero-knowledge proofs to validate game moves on Ethereum without sharing information to other players about the moves."


### 5. Royal

[Royal](https://royal.io/) is sending out their [first royalty payouts](https://royal.io/blog/royalty-payouts) to token holders: "In total, collectors will earn $36,000 in royalties across four songs". Royal is exciting to us because it's a new way for artists to connect with their fans, and help artists share success with their most loyal fans.