Important takeaways
- Grayscale Research has added Hyperliquid, Athena, Virtual Protocol, Jupiter, Jito and Grass to its top 20 crypto assets for Q1 2025.
- The company’s listing reflects a focus on decentralized AI technology and Solana’s ecosystem growth.
As 2024 draws to a close, Grayscale Research has published its update list of top 20 crypto assets is expected to develop well in the coming quarter. The list includes six new altcoins, including Hyperliquid (HYPE), Athena (ENA), Virtual Protocol (VIRTUAL), Jupiter (JUP), Jito (JTO) and Grass (GRASS).
Grayscale Research notes that these updates are influenced by themes surrounding the fallout from the US election, advances in decentralized AI technology, and growth within the Solana ecosystem. The team predicts that these will be key themes for Q1 2025.
Decentralized AI platforms were previously included on Grayscale’s Q4 2024 list, with Bittensor (TAO). For the next quarter, an increased emphasis is placed on this sector with the inclusion of VIRTUAL and GRASS.
Launched in October 2024 on Base, Virtuals Protocol allows users to create, deploy and monetize AI agents without requiring technical expertise. The VIRTUAL token hit $1.4 billion in market value within one month of launch. At press time, it is the largest AI agent coin with a market capitalization of $3.4 billion, according to CoinGecko data.
Leveraging both the growing AI and Solana ecosystems, Grass is a decentralized network built on Solana’s Layer 2. It allows private individuals to contribute their unused internet bandwidth through nodes, which collect public web data for AI training. The GRASS token has soared around 160% since its launch in late October, for CoinGecko.
Meanwhile, Hyperliquid has emerged as a leader in trading volume and total value locked among decentralized perpetual swap platforms. Its HYPE token has risen about 300% since its launch on November 29, reaching $28.
Jupiter leads as the primary DEX aggregator on Solana with the highest total value locked, while Jito, a floating stake protocol, generated over $550 million in fee revenue by 2024, Grayscale Research highlights.
Alongside the new additions, six assets – Toncoin (TON), Near (NEAR), Stacks (STX), Maker (MKR), Celo (CELO) and UMA Protocol (UMA) – were removed from the list.
According to Grayscale Research, these projects are still relevant to the crypto ecosystem, but the team believes the revised selection offers a more compelling risk-adjusted return profile for the next quarter.
The smart contract arena
An important observation from Grayscale Research is the growing competition in the smart contract platform segment. Although Ethereum had some big gains in the fourth quarter, it faced increasing competitive pressure from other blockchains, especially Solana.
Additionally, investors have started looking at other alternatives to Ethereum, such as Sui and TON. These platforms, according to Grayscale Research, have different approaches to “blockchain trilemma.”
The team reiterates that fee revenue will be a key driver of the value of smart contract platform tokens. They suggest that a platform’s ability to generate fees is directly related to its market capitalization and its ability to reward token holders through mechanisms such as token burning or staking.
“The major a network’s ability to generate fee revenue major the ability of the network to transfer value to the network in the form of token burn or stake rewards. This quarter, Grayscale Research presents the Top 20 following smart contract platforms: ETH, SOL, SUI and OP,” the report wrote.
