Projects that have just launched mainnet are often the most challenging to assess, because early on-chain data can reveal their true progress and ecosystem health. Today, let's break down how to evaluate this.

**What to look for in capital attraction?**

Total Value Locked (TVL) growth is the first signal. But the key is to see where the money is flowing—are funds just stacked in simple staking pools with impressive numbers, or are they actually used for privacy transactions or storage functions? The former can be misleading; the latter is the core competitive advantage.

**Are core features being used?**

Daily and weekly transaction volume through privacy modules, combined with the network’s sold storage capacity (measured in TB), directly reflect whether users are genuinely using the product. Higher numbers indicate it's not just hype.

**How to gauge community confidence?**

Observe the growth curve of wallet addresses—more dispersed addresses mean a more solid user base. Also, check the staking rate; if it exceeds 40%, it indicates that large holders are willing to lock their tokens, which reduces circulating supply pressure and helps stabilize the price.

**Is the ecosystem active?**

Count the number of smart contracts deployed on the protocol and the frequency of GitHub commits to gauge whether developers are actively contributing and whether there’s genuine ecosystem enthusiasm.

The most interesting part is **benchmark analysis**. Compare the project’s TVL growth rate with the overall growth of its ecosystem (for example, Sui). If the ecosystem grows by 50% but the project grows by 200%, it indicates that the project has real independent appeal and is not just riding the ecosystem’s red-hot growth. That’s the kind of project worth paying attention to.