On-chain Tokens are hot, can exchange Tokens keep up?

Recently, Bitcoin's market share has dropped from 60% to 55%, indicating that the altcoin season has arrived. Market hotspots are emerging one after another, showcasing a vibrant scene. The AI Agent sector has taken the lead, with a certain protocol's market cap once exceeding 300 million dollars. A project within the Solana ecosystem also reached a market cap of 1 billion dollars. Another ecosystem coin even achieved over a 10-fold increase. In terms of products, the exchange's open interest has repeatedly hit new highs, surpassing 4.3 billion dollars. Even the NFT sector, which was previously overlooked by the market, has shown movements, with multiple platforms issuing tokens in succession, driving up several blue-chip NFT projects on Ethereum and Solana.

From these hotspots, it can be seen that the market focus is mainly on on-chain projects. So, have the tokens of centralized exchanges really been forgotten by the market?

That's not the case. There is another narrative in this bull market that cannot be ignored: Trump may be elected.

Trump's election means that cryptocurrency will further enter the public eye. The improvement of regulations and the relaxation of oversight are conducive to external funds flowing into the cryptocurrency market. This can be seen from the continuous net inflow of funds into Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs. The Trump family's cryptocurrency project also leads by example, purchasing a large amount of DeFi-related tokens within a month, including: ETH, CBBTC, AAVE, LINK, ENA, and ONDO.

So, how do these Tokens perform after being purchased? What common characteristics do they have? Which concept coins are worth paying attention to? Let's analyze them together.

Purchase Record Summary

Starting from November 30, the project has invested a total of $44.75 million in purchasing cryptocurrencies. As of December 18, all the held coins are in a profitable state.

Interestingly, unlike traditional institutions that focus more on Bitcoin, this project holds far more ETH than Bitcoin, which may indicate that they are more optimistic about the future trend of Ethereum.

As the leader in the lending market, AAVE ranks first in TVL among all protocols, with a deposit size close to 40 billion USD, reaching an all-time high. In the past seven days, the price of AAVE has increased by 35%. The project community has also passed a proposal to collaborate with AAVE, which is currently undergoing TEMP CHECK at AaveDAO. If the proposal is approved, it will bring new users and more tangible benefits to AAVE.

LINK is a well-known oracle project. On November 14, the project announced that it would adopt LINK as the standard for on-chain data and cross-chain connectivity, promoting the large-scale adoption of DeFi in a secure manner.

The development of ENA is closely related to the current bull market. As its revenue comes from arbitrage between spot and futures, the hotter the market sentiment and the higher the Ethereum funding rate, the more revenue the project can generate. Recently, its TVL surpassed 6 billion USD, setting a new historical high. In terms of products, they have also collaborated with a major asset management firm to launch an RWA stablecoin based on government bond yields, which has alleviated concerns in the market about the potential for negative funding rates to lead the protocol into a death spiral.

ONDO is the leading project in the current RWA space. After a major asset management giant announced the launch of the BUIDL fund, the project invested over 95 million dollars, becoming the largest holder. In terms of compliance, legitimacy, capital scale, and market recognition, ONDO stands out in the RWA space.

In addition to the aforementioned coins held, COW is also worth mentioning. This project only used a certain protocol for trading when purchasing the aforementioned coins, so COW is also regarded as a related concept coin.

Next potential coins to focus on

Based on the investment strategy of the project, we can speculate on the coins they may focus on next.

First, they tend to favor tokens with which they have cooperative relationships, such as AAVE and LINK. Secondly, they value "clear business models" and "stable real returns." AAVE, LINK, ENA, ONDO, etc., all have clear product positioning, a large ecosystem of users, and real revenue models. This indicates that they will not blindly pursue "novelty" or "pure concept" tokens, but are more inclined to invest in protocols that can bring long-term value.

LDO: Considering that the project's holdings in ETH are much higher than in BTC, it is clear that they are very optimistic about Ethereum's long-term potential. As the Ethereum staking mechanism matures, along with the possibility of ETFs introducing Ethereum staking yields, a certain liquid staking protocol has become the preferred choice. This protocol is the largest liquid staking protocol in the Ethereum ecosystem, with a TVL of up to 37 billion USD, accounting for 30% of the entire Ethereum staking market.

Pendle: Primarily focused on the yield splitting market, allowing users to trade future yield rights. As the staking rates of Ethereum and the yields of protocols like USDe rise, the demand for yield trading markets continues to increase, making Pendle highly regarded in this bull market. Recently, Pendle's TVL has exceeded 5 billion USD and has established partnerships with several mainstream DeFi protocols.

UNI: A certain DEX is the pioneer of DeFi Summer and currently the most commonly used decentralized exchange by users, leading this sector. Recently, they also launched a new product, and although the market response has been lukewarm, it does not affect users' reliance on their products.

Conclusion: Blue-chip projects become the focus

Regarding the large-scale purchase of cryptocurrency for this project, an analyst from a data analysis platform stated to the media: "This purchasing behavior may be aimed at gaining more trust, or to promote the development of its own project by attracting attention to these assets. Because if these assets perform well, the project may also benefit from it."

The project actively lays out blue-chip projects, which not only enhances market confidence in mainstream DeFi protocols but also injects more institutional funds into the crypto market. This flow of funds further stabilizes the market and drives mainstream projects toward higher market value and development potential.