Grayscale has announced updates to its quarterly list of the top 20 tokens to watch for the first quarter of 2025. The asset manager has included new additions that align with emerging industry trends such as a more favorable regulatory environment in the United States, advances in decentralized artificial intelligence, and expansion within the Solana ecosystem.
The updated list features tokens like Hyperliquid (HYPE), Ethena (ENA), Virtuals (VIRTUAL), Jupiter (JUP), Jito (JTO), and Grass (GRASS). Hyperliquid is noted as a high-performance layer-1 network, while Virtuals and Grass operate as AI platforms. Meanwhile, Ethena, Jupiter, and Jito are decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, with the latter two being native to the Solana blockchain.
Grayscale continues to emphasize themes from previous quarters, including Ethereum scaling solutions, tokenization, and decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN). The inclusion of Optimism, Chainlink, and Helium underscores these ongoing themes.
Smart contract platforms like Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, and Sui remain competitive areas within the digital assets sector. Grayscale has observed that the growing presence of alternative layer-1 blockchain networks has been a factor in Ethereum’s performance relative to its peers in 2024.
In broader industry trends, the cryptocurrency market has experienced significant growth post-Donald Trump’s election victory, with expectations of a pro-industry stance potentially benefiting the crypto space. Raj Brahmbhatt, CEO of Web3 settlement company Zeebu, expressed optimism about the US emerging as a global leader in the crypto sector by year-end, particularly given Trump’s commitment to appointing industry-friendly regulators.
Solana’s DeFi space has seen notable activity, with its total value locked (TVL) rising dramatically over the year. Solana-based Jito reported substantial monthly revenue driven by priority fees and tips.
Additionally, AI agents are anticipated to become increasingly important within decentralized communities. These agents could play key roles in crypto staking and onchain trading, offering new use cases for artificial intelligence in the blockchain domain.
