2021 was a breakout year for the cryptocurrency market place in many respects and virtually investors are absolutely thrilled that Bitcoin (BTC) price established a new all-time high of $68,789. In the same timeframe, Ether (ETH) went on a parabolic rally that saw its price gain 565% from Jan. 1 to hitting a record loftier at $4,859 on November. 10.

While it was a imprint yr for large cap cryptocurrencies, some of the biggest gains and near impactful developments came from the altcoin market where decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) rallied by thousands of percent and helped to usher in a new level of awareness and adoption for blockchain applied science and cryptocurrencies.

Here's a look at 5 altcoin projects that fabricated significant contributions to the cryptocurrency ecosystem in 2022.

Uniswap

The decentralized exchange Uniswap (UNI) has arguably had the greatest impact on the crypto ecosystem as a whole since launching in the summertime of 2022, with the DEX seeing significant growth throughout 2022 as it helped facilitate the launch of thousands of new crypto projects by removing the barriers to launch that existed on centralized exchanges.

Data provided by Dune Analytics shows that Uniswap has been the ascendant DEX throughout the year and it has consistently seen more trading volume than all other DEXs combined.

Monthly DEX book past projection. Source: Dune Analytics

As seen on the chart to a higher place, the volume traded on decentralized exchanges really started to ramp up in the second half of 2022 led in large function by activity on Uniswap.

Throughout 2022, Uniswap led the field in development as well, with the developers behind the protocol announcing the release of Uniswap v3 in March. The v3 upgrade included multiple protocol upgrades and it built the foundation to integrate layer-two scaling solutions similar Optimism and Arbitrum with Uniswap equally a way to assist reduce the transaction costs and processing times for users.

Aave

Aave (AAVE) is a DeFi lending protocol that allows users to deposit their tokens and lend them out as a way to earn a yield or pledge them as collateral in order to borrow another asset.

Every bit the DeFi sector started to gain traction in early 2022, AAVE emerged every bit a customs favorite cheers to the wide swath of crypto assets supported and the backing from some well-funded players.

Over the course of the year, AAVE expanded its capabilities and attain with the release of AAVE v2, which added back up for Polygon, a layer-two scaling solution, and Barrage (AVAX), which is a pop cantankerous-concatenation blockchain network.

Total liquidity on the AAVE protocol. Source: Aave

As a event of these added capabilities, the total liquidity available on the AAVE protocol has surpassed $25.7 billion, making AAVE the top-ranked DeFi protocol by full value locked (TVL).

Bend

Curve Finance is a stablecoin-focused protocol that utilizes an automated market maker to manage liquidity on the platform and across the DeFi ecosystem.

Stablecoins have emerged as a foundational slice for the cryptocurrency community as a whole in 2022 considering they provide sufficient liquidity for the market and a safe haven for traders seeking shelter during periods of high volatility.

The growing importance that stablecoins have benefited the Curve protocol and its native CRV by accelerating its integration of stablecoins into many of the acme DeFi protocols, including the Yearn.Finance ecosystem and Convex Finance.

Despite the fact that a significant portion of the avails locked on the Curve protocol are stablecoins, the platform now ranks equally the second leading protocol in terms of TVL behind AAVE, with data from Defi Llama showing that $21.77 billion in value is now locked in Bend vaults.

Total value locked on Curve. Source: Defi Llama

Curve has also integrated with many of the most agile blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Avalanche, Harmony, xDAI, Polygon, Arbitrum and Fantom, which is further evidence of the protocol's quest to exist the stablecoin liquidity provider for the entire crypto market.

Related: US Fiscal Stability Oversight Council identifies stablecoins and cryptos as threats to financial system

Axie Infinity

Axie Infinity is a play-to-earn (P2E) trading and battling game that allows participants to collect, brood, raise, battle and trade NFT-based creatures chosen Axies.

The P2E model emerged as a new fan favorite over the course of 2022 considering information technology provides users with the ability to earn a daily income aslope their gameplay, which offers a few unique advantages when compared to the traditional pay-to-play model.

Aslope the rise in popularity of Axie Infinity came a new all-time high for the platform's native AXS token. Every bit the token stormed to new highs, the platform generated a daily acquirement of $17.55 million at its acme on August 6.

Axie Infinity price vs. total revenue. Source: Token Terminal

Axie Infinity was besides one of the earliest projects to establish the trend of migrating away from the Ethereum network because of high fees and slow transactions. Earlier in the year, the project migrated to the Ronin sidechain and in Nov, the projection launched its own DEX chosen Katana.

Dogecoin

Dogecoin (DOGE) is an open up-source proof-of-work cryptocurrency that leads the field of "meme" coins that made headlines all throughout 2022.

While the projection has few contributions on the technological or development front, frequent shilling from the likes of Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Shark Tank star Marking Cuban helped to push button Doge into a 23,746% rally that saw the price ascent from $0.0031 on January. 1 to an all-time high of $0.74 on May 8.

DOGE/USDT 1-twenty-four hour period nautical chart. Source: TradingView

On peak of the gains seen in DOGE price, the token received increased attention after it was announced that information technology would exist used to help fund the launch of a lunar satellite by SpaceX and the Dogecoin move kicked off a meme-money rally, spawning a bevy of copy-dog projects similar Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogelon Mars (ELON).

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