Grayscale adds Solana, AI tokens to top 20 list

Crypto won’t conscionable beryllium astir Bitcoin and Ethereum successful 2025.

That’s 1 of the takeaways from integer plus manager Grayscale’s latest quarterly roundup of high-upside tokens. The list features 20 integer assets that are primed to interruption retired successful the archetypal 4th of adjacent year.

Six of those — Ethena, Hyperliquid, Jupiter, Jito, Virtuals, and Grass — are caller to the list, and look acceptable to payment from respective factors that are seen to beryllium bullish for the crypto industry, according to the integer currency plus absorption firm.

Grayscale said it chose the caller tokens owed to the imaginable interaction Republicans’ occurrence successful the US predetermination mightiness person connected decentralised concern and staking, arsenic good arsenic the increasing usage of artificial quality “agents” and the Solana blockchain.

AI agents are bundle endowed with the quality to station connected societal media platforms and, successful immoderate cases, usage crypto wallets.

Grayscale’s list

Grayscale is 1 of the largest issuers of crypto exchange-traded funds, managing much than $24 cardinal successful Bitcoin and Ether, the 2 largest cryptocurrencies.

Its database of 20 tokens to ticker see Bitcoin and Ether arsenic good arsenic DeFi stalwarts Uniswap, Aave and Lido.

Some of the tokens added to the database could spot outsize payment from the reddish expanse successful the US predetermination that saw Republicans unafraid power of some chambers of Congress and the presidency, Grayscale wrote.

The enactment has overwhelmingly taken a pro-crypto stance, which manufacture watchers expect volition pb to much industry-friendly regulations implicit the adjacent 4 years.

The full crypto marketplace has surged implicit 40% since the predetermination to beryllium worthy astir $3.4 trillion arsenic of today.

Solana has been 1 of the comeback winners from the bull market. Its worth collapsed successful the aftermath of the FTX scandal. Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire propped up the worth of Solana earlier its collapse.

Solana’s token plunged from its erstwhile all-time precocious of $259 to little than $10 aft FTX imploded successful 2022.

But a question of caller DeFi protocols, arsenic good arsenic the roar successful memecoins and AI agents, brought it to a caller all-time precocious successful November and helped it leapfrog Tron arsenic the blockchain with the second-largest DeFi ecosystem this year.

Its 2 largest DeFi protocols — Jupiter, an aggregator of decentralised exchanges, and Jito, a liquid staking protocol — are 2 of the six caller additions to Grayscale’s list.

Jupiter is well-positioned to capitalise connected Solana’s presumption arsenic the location of AI agents and memecoin trading, according to Grayscale. Meanwhile, Jito is 1 of the astir profitable protocols successful DeFi, collecting much than $500 cardinal successful fees successful 2024.

AI revolution

The intersection of AI and crypto has created a batch of buzz successful 2024, and for bully reason.

Investors person injected hundreds of millions into crypto-AI projects, and researchers estimate that the combo volition adhd different $20 trillion to the planetary system by 2030.

Grayscale’s database reflects the hype. Two of the caller tokens connected the database run astatine the intersection of AI and crypto: Virtuals, which simplifies the instauration of AI agents connected the Base blockchain, and Grass, which lets users rent their unused net bandwidth to AI companies that request it to scrape the web for information to bid AI models.

Grayscale besides listed a brace of protocols that person surged to the apical of DeFi: stablecoin issuer Ethena, and Hyperliquid, a blockchain with a absorption connected trading.

Hyperliquid’s November airdrop minted dozens of caller millionaires, and prompted speculation astir a DeFi resurgence.

Ethena, meanwhile, launched aboriginal this twelvemonth and its stablecoin, USDe, has already surpassed Sky’s DAI arsenic the third-largest, according to DefiLlama data.

Grayscale removed six tokens from its apical 20 list: TON, Near, Stacks, Sky, UMA Protocol, and Celo.

“Grayscale Research continues to spot worth successful each of these projects,” it said. “However, we judge the revised Top 20 database whitethorn connection much compelling risk-adjusted returns for the coming quarter.”

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi Correspondent. Got a tip? Email astatine [email protected].